History of gunpowder

Earliest known written formula for gunpowder, from the Wujing Zongyao of 1044 AD.

Gunpowder is the first physical explosive and propellant. Before its invention, many incendiary and burning devices had been used, including Greek fire. The invention of gunpowder is usually attributed to experimentation in Chinese alchemy by Taoists in the pursuit of immortality, and is popularly listed as one of the "Four Great Inventions" of China. It was invented during the late Tang dynasty (9th century) but the earliest record of a written formula appeared in the Song dynasty (11th century). Knowledge of gunpowder spread rapidly throughout the Old World possibly as a result of the Mongol conquests during the 13th century, with the earliest written formula for it outside of China contained within the Opus Majus, a 1267 treatise by the English friar Roger Bacon. It was employed in warfare to some effect from at least the 12th century in weapons such as fire arrows, bombs, and the fire lance before the appearance of the gun. While the fire lance was eventually supplanted by the gun, other gunpowder weapons such as rockets continued to see use in China, Korea, India, and eventually Europe. Bombs too never ceased to develop and continued to progress into the modern day as grenades, mines, and other explosive implements. Gunpowder can also be used for non-military purposes such as fireworks for entertainment, or in explosives for mining and tunneling.

Although it is not known precisely by whom gunpowder was invented by, most historians agree that gunpowder's origins were in China by virtue of archaeological evidence and historical documents predating others by centuries, even if some professional military historians know little or nothing else about this early history of gunpowder warfare.[2] The very earliest possible reference to gunpowder appeared in 142 AD during the Eastern Han dynasty, when a man named Wei Boyang wrote about a substance with the properties of gunpowder, and described a mixture of three powders that would "fly and dance" violently in his Cantong qi, otherwise known as the "Book of the Kinship of Three", a Taoist text on the subject of alchemy.[3][4] Although it is impossible to know if he was actually referring to gunpowder, no other explosive known to scientists is composed of three powders.[3] While it was almost certainly not their intention to create a weapon of war, Taoist alchemists would continue to play a major role in the invention of gunpowder due to their experiments on sulfur and saltpeter in the search for the secrets of eternal life and ways to transmute one material into another.[3][5] Historian Peter Lorge notes that despite the early association of gunpowder with Taoism, this may be a quirk of historiography, and a result of the better preservation of texts associated with Taoism rather than being a point of interest limited to only Taoists.[6] The Taoist quest for the elixir of life attracted many powerful patrons, one of whom was Emperor Wu of Han, and one of the resulting alchemical experiments involved heating sulfur and saltpeter to transform them.[3]

The next possible reference to gunpowder appeared in the year 300 during the Jin dynasty (265–420).[7] A Taoist philosopher by the name of Ge Hong wrote down the ingredients of gunpowder in his surviving works, collectively known as the Baopuzi ("The Master Who Embraces Simplicity"). The "Inner Chapters" on Taoism contains records of his experiments with heated saltpeter, pine resin, and charcoal among other carbon materials, resulting in explosion, which most historians acknowledge as an early form of gunpowder.[8]

In 492, Taoist alchemists had noted that saltpeter, one of the most important ingredients in gunpowder, burns with a purple flame, allowing for practical efforts at purifying the substance. The first confirmed reference to what can be considered gunpowder in China occurred more than three hundred years later during the Tang dynasty, first in a formula contained in the Taishang Guaizu Danjing Mijue in 808, and then about half a century later in a Taoist text known as the Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe (真元妙道要略).[5] The first formula was a combination of six parts sulfur to six parts saltpeter to one part birthwort herb, and the Taoist text warned against an assortment of dangerous formulas, one of which corresponds with gunpowder: "Some have heated together sulfur, realgar (arsenic disulphide), and saltpeter with honey; smoke [and flames] result, so that their hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house burned down."[5] Alchemists called this discovery fire medicine ("huoyao" 火藥), and the term has continued to refer to gunpowder in China into the present day, a reminder of its heritage as a side result in the search for longevity increasing drugs.[9]

The earliest surviving chemical formula of gunpowder dates to 1044 in the form of the military manual Wujing Zongyao, also known in English as the Complete Essentials for the Military Classics, which contains a collection of factoids on Chinese weaponry.[10][11] The Wujing Zongyao served as a repository of antiquated or fanciful weaponry, and this applied to gunpowder as well, which suggests that it had already been weaponized long before the invention of what would today be considered conventional firearms. These numerous types of gunpowder weapons styling various names such as "flying incendiary club for subjugating demons," "caltrop fire ball," "ten-thousand fire flying sand magic bomb," "big bees nest," "burning heaven fierce fire unstoppable bomb," "fire bricks" which released "flying swallows," "flying rats," "fire birds," and "fire oxen" eventually gave way and coalesced into a smaller number of dominant types, notably gunpowder arrows, bombs, and guns. This was probably because some weapons were deemed too onerous or ineffective to deploy.[12]

At this point the formula contained too little saltpeter (about 50%) to be explosive, but the mixture was highly flammable, and contemporary weapons reflected this in their deployment as mainly shock and incendiary weapons. One of the first, if not the first of these weapons was the fire arrow.[13] The first possible reference to the use of fire arrows was by the Southern Wu in 904 during the siege of Yuzhang, when an officer under Yang Xingmi by the name of Zheng Fan (鄭璠) ordered his troops to "shoot off a machine to let fire and burn the Longsha Gate," after which he and his troops dashed over the fire into the city and captured it, and he was promoted to Prime Minister Inspectorate for his efforts and the burns his body endured.[14] A later account of this event corroborated with the report and explained that "by let fire (飛火) is meant things like firebombs and fire arrows."[13] Arrows carrying gunpowder was possibly the most applicable form of gunpowder weaponry at the time, as early gunpowder may have only produced an effective flame when exposed to oxygen, thus the rush of air around the arrow in flight would have provided a suitable catalyst for the reaction.[13]

The first fire arrows were just arrows strapped with gunpowder explosives, but in 969 two Song generals, Yue Yifang and Feng Jisheng (馮繼升), invented a variant of the fire arrow which utilized gunpowder tubes as propellant.[15] Afterwards fire arrows started transitioning to rocket propelled weapons rather than being fired from a bow.[15] These fire arrows were shown to the emperor in 970 when the head of a weapons manufacturing bureau sent Feng Jisheng to demonstrate the gunpowder arrow design, for which he was heavily rewarded. In 1000 a soldier by the name of Tang Fu (唐福) also demonstrated his own designs of gunpowder arrows, gunpowder pots (a proto-bomb which spews fire), and gunpowder caltrops, for which he was richly rewarded as well.[16] The imperial court took great interest in the progress of gunpowder developments and actively encouraged as well as disseminated military technology, for example in 1002 when a local militia man named Shi Pu (石普) showed his own versions of fireballs and gunpowder arrows to imperial officials, they were so astounded that the emperor and court decreed that a team would be assembled to print the plans and instructions for the new designs to promulgate throughout the realm.[16] The Song court's policy of rewarding military innovators was reported to have "brought about a great number of cases of people presenting technology and techniques" (器械法式) according to the official History of Song.[16] Production of gunpowder and fire arrows heavily increased in the 11th century as the court centralized the production process, constructing large gunpowder production facilities, hiring artisans, carpenters, and tanners for the military production complex in the capital of Kaifeng. One surviving source circa 1023 lists all the artisans working in Kaifeng while another notes that in 1083 the imperial court sent 100,00 gunpowder arrows to one garrison and 250,000 to another.[16] Evidence of gunpowder in the Liao dynasty and Western Xia are much sparser than in Song, but some evidence such as the Song decree of 1073 that all subjects were henceforth forbidden from trading sulfur and saltpeter across the Liao border suggests that the Liao were aware of gunpowder developments to the south and coveted gunpowder ingredients of their own.[16]

Two different types of fire lances. The fire lance was an early anti-personnel gunpowder weapon with a relatively short range. Considered by many to be the first proto-gun.

The Jurchen people of Manchuria united under Wanyan Aguda and established their own Jin dynasty in 1115. Allying with the Song, they rapidly rose to the forefront of East Asian powers and defeated the Liao dynasty in a surprisingly short span of time, destroying the 150 year balance of power between the Song, Liao, and Western Xia. Remnants of the Liao fled to the west and became known as the Qara Khitai or Western Liao to the Chinese. In the east, the fragile Song-Jin alliance broke as the Jin saw that the Song army was unable to even defeat the Liao garrisons and fulfill their end of the alliance in capturing the Liao Southern Capital. Realizing the weakness of Song, Jin grew tired of waiting and captured all five of the Liao capitals themselves, proceeding to make war on Song, initiating the Jin-Song Wars. For the first time, two major powers would have access to equally formidable gunpowder weapons, ushering in the Gunpowder Age in earnest.[17] Initially the Jin expected their campaign in Song to proceed quickly given how poorly the Song fared against Liao. However they were met with stout resistance upon besieging Kaifeng in 1126 and faced the usual array of gunpowder arrows and fire bombs, but also a new weapon called the "thunderclap bomb" (霹靂炮), which one witness wrote, "At night the thunderclap bombs were used, hitting the lines of the enemy well, and throwing them into great confusion. Many fled, screaming in fright."[17]

Jin troops withdrew with a ransom of Song silk and treasure, but returned several months later, this time with their own gunpowder bombs manufactured by captured Song artisans.[17] According to historian Wang Zhaochun, the account of this battle provided the "earliest truly detailed descriptions of the use of gunpowder weapons in warfare."[17] Records show that Jin utilized gunpowder arrows and trebuchets to hurl gunpowder bombs while Song responded with gunpowder arrows, fire bombs, thunderclap bombs, and a new addition called the "molten metal bomb" (金汁炮).[18] As the Jin account describes, when they attacked the city's Xuanhua Gate, their "fire bombs fell like rain, and their arrows were so numerous as to be uncountable."[18] Jin captured Kaifeng despite the appearance of the molten metal bomb and secured another 20,000 fire arrows for their arsenal.[18]

The molten metal bomb appeared again in 1129 when Song general Li Yanxian (李彥仙) clashed with Jin forces while defending a strategic pass. The Jin assault lasted day and night without respite, using siege carts, fire carts, and sky bridges, but each assault was met with Song soldiers who "resisted at each occasion, and also used molten metal bombs. Wherever the gunpowder touched, everything would disintegrate without a trace."[19]

Song established another capital in modern Hangzhou and the Jin forces followed. The fighting that ensued would see the first proto-gun, the fire lance, in action. Despite the low explosive potential of 11th century gunpowder, it's possible that it was already being utilized in early projectile weapons such as the fire lance. There is some minor evidence of this based on an artistic depiction of it in the form of a silk banner painting slightly predating the Wujing Zongyao showing a demon pointing what appears to be a fire lance at the Buddha, trying to disturb his meditation.[20] Although most Chinese scholars reject the appearance of the fire lance prior to the Jin-Song wars, a Song text from 1000 and the Wujing Zongyao do make brief mentions of the fire lance.[18] The fire lance, as implied by the name, is essentially a long spear or pole affixed with a tube of gunpowder, and as it saw more usage, the tube's length became longer and pellets were added to the composition. The earliest confirmed employment of the fire lance in warfare was by Song dynasty forces against the Jin in 1132 during the siege of De'an (modern Anlu, Hubei Province),[21][22][23] where they were used to great effect against wooden siege towers called "sky bridges": "As the sky bridges became stuck fast, more than ten feet from the walls and unable to get any closer, [the defenders] were ready. From below and above the defensive structures they emerged and attacked with fire lances, striking lances, and hooked sickles, each in turn. The people [i.e., the porters] at the base of the sky bridges were repulsed. Pulling their bamboo ropes, they [the porters] ended up drawing the sky bridge back in an anxious and urgent rush, going about fifty paces before stopping."[24] The surviving porters then tried once again to wheel the sky bridges into place but Song soldiers emerged from the walls in force and made a direct attack on the sky bridge soldiers while defenders on the walls threw bricks and shot arrows in conjunction with trebuchets hurling bombs and rocks. The sky bridges were also set fire to with incendiary bundles of grass and firewood. Li Heng, the Jin commander, decided to lift the siege and Jin forces were driven back with severe casualties.[24]

The siege of De'an marks an important transition and landmark in the history of gunpowder weapons as the fire medicine of the fire lances were described using a new word: "fire bomb medicine" (火炮藥), rather than simply "fire medicine." This could imply the use of a new more potent formula, or simply an acknowledgement of the specialized military application of gunpowder.[24] Peter Lorge suggests that this "bomb powder" may have been corned, making it distinct from normal gunpowder.[25] Evidence of gunpowder firecrackers also points to their appearance at roughly around the same time fire medicine was making its transition in the literary imagination.[26] Fire lances continued to be used as anti-personnel weapons into the 12th century, and were even attached to battle carts in one situation in 1163. Song commander Wei Sheng constructed several hundred of these carts known as "at-your-desire-war-carts" (如意戰車), which contained fire lances protruding from protective covering on the sides. They were used to defend mobile trebuchets that hurled fire bombs.[24]

Gunpowder technology also spread to naval warfare and in 1129 Song decreed that all warships were to be fitted with trebuchets for hurling gunpowder bombs.[24] Older gunpowder weapons such as fire arrows were also utilized. In 1159 a Song fleet of 120 ships caught a Jin fleet at anchor near Shijiu Island (石臼島) off the shore of Shandong peninsula. The Song commander "ordered that gunpowder arrows be shot from all sides, and wherever they struck , flames and smoke rose up in swirls, setting fire to several hundred vessels."[26] Song forces took another victory in 1161 when Song paddle boats ambushed a Jin transport fleet, launching thunderclap bombs, and drowned the Jin force in the Yangtze.[26]

According to a minor military official by the name of Zhao Wannian (趙萬年), thunderclap bombs were used again to great effect by the Song during the Jin siege of Xiangyang in 1206-1207. Both sides had gunpowder weapons, but the Jin troops only used gunpowder arrows for destroying the city's moored vessels. The Song used fire arrows, fire bombs, and thunderclap bombs. Fire arrows and bombs were used to destroy Jin trebuchets. The thunderclap bombs were used on Jin soldiers themselves, causing foot soldiers and horsemen to panic and retreat. "We beat our drums and yelled from atop the city wall, and simultaneously fired our thunderclap missiles out from the city walls. The enemy cavalry was terrified and ran away."[27] The Jin were forced to retreat and make camp by the riverside. In a rare occurrence, the Song made a successful offensive on Jin forces, and conducted a night assault using boats. They were loaded with gunpowder arrows, thunderclap bombs, a thousand crossbowmen, fire hundred infantry, and a hundred drummers. Jin troops were surprised in their encampment while asleep by loud drumming, followed by an onslaught of crossbow bolts, and then thunderclap bombs, which caused a panic of such magnitude that they were unable to even saddle themselves and trampled over each other trying to get away. Two to three thousand Jin troops were slaughtered along with eight to nine hundred horses.[27]

Then everything changed when the Jin dynasty attacked, with even better bombs. The iron bomb. Traditionally the inspiration for the development of the iron bomb is ascribed to the tale of a fox hunter named Iron Li. According to the story, around the year 1189 Iron Li developed a new method for hunting foxes which used a ceramic explosive to scare foxes into his nets. The explosive consisted of a ceramic bottle with a mouth, stuffed with gunpowder, and attached with a fuse. Explosive and net were placed at strategic points of places such as watering holes frequented by foxes, and when they got near enough, Iron Li would light the fuse, causing the ceramic bottle to explode and scaring the frightened foxes right into his nets. While a fanciful tale, it's not exactly certain why this would cause the development of the iron bomb, given the explosive was made using ceramics, and other materials such as bamboo or even leather would have done the same job, assuming they made a loud enough noise.[28] Nonetheless, the iron bomb made its first appearance in 1221 at the siege of Qizhou (in modern Hubei province), and this time it would be the Jin who possessed the technological advantage. The Song command Zhao Yurong (趙與褣) survived and was able to relay his account for posterity.

Qizhou was a major fortress city situated near the Yangtze and a 25 thousand strong Jin army advanced on it in 1221. News of the approaching army reached Zhao Yurong in Qizhou, and despite being outnumbered nearly eight to one, he decided to hold the city. Qizhou's arsenal consisted of some three thousand thunderclap bombs, twenty thousand "great leather bombs" (皮大炮), and thousands of gunpowder arrows and gunpowder crossbow bolts. While the formula for gunpowder had become potent enough to consider the Song bombs to be true explosives, they were unable to match explosive power of the Jin iron bombs. Yurong describes the uneven exchange thus, "The barbaric enemy attacked the Northwest Tower with an unceasing flow of catapult projectiles from thirteen catapults. Each catapult shot was followed by an iron fire bomb [catapult shot], whose sound was like thunder. That day, the city soldiers in facing the catapult shots showed great courage as they maneuvered [our own] catapults, hindered by injuries from the iron fire bombs. Their heads, their eyes, their cheeks were exploded to bits, and only one half [of the face] was left."[29] Jin artillerists were able to successfully target the command center itself: "The enemy fired off catapult stones ... nonstop day and night, and the magistrate's headquarters [帳] at the eastern gate, as well as my own quarters ..., were hit by the most iron fire bombs, to the point that they struck even on top of [my] sleeping quarters and [I] nearly perished! Some said there was a traitor. If not, how would they have known the way to strike at both of these places?"[29] Zhao was able to examine the new iron bombs himself and described thus, "In shape they are like gourds, but with a small mouth. They are made with pig iron, about two inches thick, and they cause the city's walls to shake."[29] Houses were blown apart, towers battered, and defenders blasted from their placements. Within four weeks all four gates were under heavy bombardment. Finally the Jin made a frontal assault on the walls and scaled them, after which followed a merciless hunt for soldiers, officers, and officials of every level. Zhao managed an escape by clambering over the battlement and making a hasty retreat across the river, but his family remained in the city. Upon returning at a later date to search the ruins, he found that the "bones and skeletons were so mixed up that there was no way to tell who was who."[29]

A "nest of bees" arrow rocket launcher as depicted in the Wubei Zhi. So called because of its hexagonal honeycomb shape.

A "long serpent" fire arrow launcher as depicted in the Wubei Zhi. It carries 32 medium small poisoned rockets and comes with a sling to carry on the back.

The 'convocation of eagles chasing hare arrow' from the Wubei Zhi. A double-ended rocket pod that carries 30 small poisoned rockets on each end for a total of 60 rockets. It carries a sling for transport.

The 'divine fire arrow screen' from the Wubei Zhi. A stationary arrow launcher that carries one hundred fire arrows. It is activated by a trap-like mechanism, possibly of wheellock design.

An illustration of a later fire lance with a gunpowder charge shooting a blast of flame with lead pellets as coviative projectiles. The weapon was called the 'phalanx-charging fire-gourd'. Foregoing the spearhead, this weapon relies solely on the force of gunpowder and projectiles. This illustration is from the Huolongjing, a 14th-century military treatise.

The Mongols and their rise in world history as well as conflicts with both the Jin and Song played a key role in the evolution of gunpowder technology.[30] Mongol aptitude in incorporating foreign experts extended to the Chinese, who provided artisans that followed Mongol armies willingly and unwillingly far into the west and even east, to Japan. Unfortunately textual evidence for this is scant as the Mongols left few documents. This lack of primary source documents has caused some historians and scholars such as Kate Raphel to doubt the Mongol's role in disseminating gunpowder throughout Eurasia. On the opposite side stand historians such as Tonio Andrade and Stephen Haw, who believe that the Mongol Empire not only used gunpowder weapons but deserves the moniker "the first gunpowder empire."[31]

The first concerted Mongol invasion of Jin occurred in 1211 and total conquest was not accomplished until 1234. In 1232 the Mongols besieged the Jin capital of Kaifeng and deployed gunpowder weapons along with other more conventional siege techniques such as building stockades, watchtowers, trenches, guardhouses, and forcing Chinese captives to haul supplies and fill moats.[32] Jin scholar Liu Qi (劉祈) recounts in his memoir, "the attack against the city walls grew increasingly intense, and bombs rained down as [the enemy] advanced."[32] The Jin defenders also deployed gunpowder bombs as well as fire arrows (huo jian 火箭) launched using a type of early solid-propellant rocket.[15] Of the bombs, Liu Qi writes, "From within the walls the defenders responded with a gunpowder bomb called the heaven-shaking-thunder bomb (震天雷). Whenever the [Mongol] troops encountered one, several men at a time would be turned into ashes."[32] A more fact based and clear description of the bomb exists in the History of Jin: "The heaven-shaking-thunder bomb is an iron vessel filled with gunpowder. When lighted with fire and shot off, it goes off like a crash of thunder that can be heard for a hundred li [thirty miles], burning an expanse of land more than half a mu [所爇圍半畝之上, a mu is a sixth of an acre], and the fire can even penetrate iron armor."[32] A Ming official named He Mengchuan would encounter an old cache of these bombs three centuries later in the Xi'an area: "When I went on official business to Shaanxi Province, I saw on top of Xi'an's city walls an old stockpile of iron bombs. They were called 'heaven-shaking-thunder' bombs, and they were like an enclosed rice bowl with a hole at the top, just big enough to put your finger in. The troops said they hadn't been used for a very long time."[32] Furthermore, he wrote, "When the powder goes off, the bomb rips open, and the iron pieces fly in all directions. That is how it is able to kill people and horses from far away."[33]

Heaven-shaking-thunder bombs, also known as thunder crash bombs, were utilized prior to the siege in 1231 when a Jin general made use of them in destroying a Mongol warship, but during the siege the Mongols responded by protecting themselves with elaborate screens of thick leather. This was effective enough for workers to get right up to the walls to undermine their foundations and excavate protective niches. Jin defenders countered by tying iron cords and attaching them to heaven-shaking-thunder bombs, which were lowered down the walls until they reached the place where the miners worked. The protective leather screens were unable to withstand the explosion, and were penetrated, killing the excavators.[33] Another weapon the Jin employed was an improved version of the fire lance called the flying fire lance. The History of Jin provides a detailed description: "To make the lance, use chi-huang paper, sixteen layers of it for the tube, and make it a bit longer than two feet. Stuff it with willow charcoal, iron fragments, magnet ends, sulfur, white arsenic [probably an error that should mean saltpeter], and other ingredients, and put a fuse to the end. Each troop has hanging on him a little iron pot to keep fire [probably hot coals], and when it's time to do battle, the flames shoot out the front of the lance more than ten feet, and when the gunpowder is depleted, the tube isn't destroyed."[33] While Mongol soldiers typically held a view of disdain toward most Jin weapons, apparently they greatly feared the flying fire lance and heaven-shaking-thunder bomb.[34] Kaifeng managed to hold out for a year before the Jin emperor fled and the city capitulated. In some cases Jin troops still fought with some success, scoring isolated victories such as when a Jin commander led 450 fire lancers against a Mongol encampment, which was "completely routed, and three thousand five hundred were drowned."[33] Even after the Jin emperor committed suicide in 1234, one loyalist gathered all the metal he could find in the city he was defending, even gold and silver, and made explosives to lob against the Mongols, but the momentum of the Mongol Empire could not be stopped.[35] By 1234, both the Western Xia and Jin dynasty had been conquered.[36]

The Mongol war machine moved south and in 1237 attacked the Song city of Anfeng (modern Shouxian, Anhui Province) "using gunpowder bombs [huo pao] to burn the [defensive] towers."[36] These bombs were apparently quite large. "Several hundred men hurled one bomb, and if it hit the tower it would immediately smash it to pieces."[36] The Song defenders under commander Du Gao (杜杲) rebuilt the towers and retaliated with their own bombs, which they called the "Elipao," after a famous local pear, probably in reference to the shape of the weapon.[36] Perhaps as another point of military interest, the account of this battle also mentions that the Anfeng defenders were equipped with a type of small arrow to shoot through eye slits of Mongol armor, as normal arrows were too thick to penetrate.[36]

By the mid 13th century, gunpowder weapons had become central to the Song war effort, and in 1257 the Song official Li Zengbo was dispatched to inspect border cities' arsenals. Li considered an ideal city arsenal to include several hundred thousand iron bombshells, and also its own production facility to produce at least a couple thousand a month. The results of his tour of the border were severely disappointing and in one arsenal he found "no more than 85 iron bomb-shells, large and small, 95 fire-arrows, and 105 fire-lances. This is not sufficient for a mere hundred men, let alone a thousand, to use against an attack by the ... barbarians. The government supposedly wants to make preparations for the defense of its fortified cities, and to furnish them with military supplies against the enemy (yet this is all they give us). What chilling indifference!"[37] Fortunately for the Song, Möngke Khan died in 1259 and the war would not continue until 1269 under the leadership of Kublai Khan, but when it did the Mongols came in full force.

Blocking the Mongols' passage south of the Yangtze were the twin fortress cities of Xiangyang and Fancheng. What resulted was one of the longest sieges the world had ever known, lasting from 1268 to 1273. For the first three years the Song defenders had been able to receive supplies and reinforcements by water, but in 1271 the Mongols set up a full blockade with a formidable navy of their own, isolating the two cities. This didn't prevent the Song from running the supply route anyways, and two men by the surname Zhang did exactly that. The Two Zhangs commanded a hundred paddle wheel boats, travelling by night under the light of lantern fire, but were discovered early on by a Mongol commander. When the Song fleet arrived near the cities, they found the Mongol fleet to have spread themselves out along the entire width of the Yangtze with "vessels spread out, filling the entire surface of the river, and there was no gap for them to enter."[38] Another defensive measure the Mongols had taken was the construction of a chain, which stretched across the water.[38] The two fleets engaged in combat and the Song opened fire with fire-lances, fire-bombs, and crossbows. A large number of men died trying to cut through chains, pull up stakes, and hurl bombs, while Song marines fought hand to hand using large axes, and according to the Mongol record, "on their ships they were up to the ankles in blood."[39] With the rise of dawn, the Song vessels made it to the city walls and the citizens "leapt up a hundred times in joy."[39] In 1273 the Mongols enlisted the expertise of two Muslim engineers, one from Persia and one from Syria, who helped in the construction of counterweight trebuchets. These new siege weapons had the capability of throwing larger missiles further than the previous traction trebuchets. One account records, "when the machinery went off the noise shook heaven and earth; every thing that [the missile] hit was broken and destroyed."[39] The fortress city of Xiangyang fell in 1273.[19]

The next major battle to feature gunpowder weapons was during a campaign led by the Mongol general Bayan, who commanded an army of around two hundred thousand, consisting of mostly Chinese soldiers. It was probably the largest army the Mongols had ever utilized. Such an army was still unable to successfully storm Song city walls, as seen in the 1274 Siege of Shayang. Thus Bayan waited for the wind to change to a northerly course before ordering his artillerists to begin bombarding the city with molten metal bombs, which caused such a fire that "the buildings were burned up and the smoke and flames rose up to heaven."[19] Shayang was captured and its inhabitants massacred.[19]

Gunpowder bombs were used again in the 1275 Siege of Changzhou in the latter stages of the Mongol-Song Wars. Upon arriving at the city, Bayan gave the inhabitants an ultimatum: "if you ... resist us ... we shall drain your carcasses of blood and use them for pillows."[19] This didn't work and the city resisted anyways, so the Mongol army bombarded them with fire bombs before storming the walls, after which followed an immense slaughter claiming the lives of a quarter million.[19] The war lasted for only another four years during which some remnants of the Song held up last desperate defenses. In 1277, 250 defenders under Lou Jianxia conducted a suicide bombing and set off a huge iron bomb when it became clear defeat was imminent. Of this, the History of Song writes, "the noise was like a tremendous thunderclap, shaking the walls and ground, and the smoke filled up the heavens outside. Many of the troops [outside] were startled to death. When the fire was extinguished they went in to see. There were just ashes, not a trace left."[40][41] So came an end to the Mongol-Song Wars, which saw the deployment of all the gunpowder weapons available to both sides at the time, which for the most part meant gunpowder arrows, bombs, and lances, but in retrospect, another development would overshadow them all, the birth of the gun.[42]

In 1280, a large store of gunpowder at Weiyang in Yangzhou accidentally caught fire, producing such a massive explosion that a team of inspectors at the site a week later deduced that some 100 guards had been killed instantly, with wooden beams and pillars blown sky high and landing at a distance of over 10 li (~2 mi. or ~3 km) away from the explosion, creating a crater more than ten feet deep.[43] One resident described the noise of the explosion as if it "was like a volcano erupting, a tsunami crashing. The entire population was terrified."[2] According to surviving reports, the incident was caused by inexperienced gunpowder makers hired to replace the previous ones, and had been careless while grinding sulfur. A spark caused by the grinding process came into contact with some fire lances which immediately started spewing flames and jetting around "like frightened snakes."[2] The gunpowder makers did nothing as they found the sight highly amusing, that is until one fire lance burst into a cache of bombs, causing the entire complex to explode. The validity of this report is somewhat questionable, assuming everyone within the immediate vicinity were killed.[2]

By the time of Jiao Yu and his Huolongjing (a book that describes military applications of gunpowder in great detail) in the mid 14th century, the explosive potential of gunpowder was perfected, as the level of nitrate in gunpowder formulas had risen from a range of 12% to 91%,[44] with at least 6 different formulas in use that are considered to have maximum explosive potential for gunpowder.[44] By that time, the Chinese had discovered how to create explosive round shot by packing their hollow shells with this nitrate-enhanced gunpowder.[45]

Discovered in 1980, Gansu, late Western Xia (1214-1227). The Western Xia Bronze Gun is 100cm in length and weighs 108.5kg.

Discovered in Ningxia. This firearm is 34.6cm long, the muzzle 2.6cm in diameter, and weighs 1.55 kilograms.

To clarify for the purposes of this section and any other references to "firearms" or "guns" in this article, what is meant is a gunpowder weapon which uses "the explosive force of the gunpowder to propel a projectile from a tube: cannons, muskets, and pistols are typical examples."[52]

Contrary to conclusions drawn by some some 19th century historians, most modern historians now believe genuine firearms appeared to have been first invented in 13th century China, backed up by new archaeological evidence.[42][53] Traditionally, the first appearance of the gun has been dated to just after the Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty, during the late 13th century, when the fire lance proto-gun made the transition from the "bamboo- (or wood- or paper-) barreled firearm to the metal-barreled firearm."[42] Fire lances themselves were not true guns because in the beginning they did not include projectiles. Later on, shrapnel such as ceramics and bits of iron were added, but these didn't occlude the barrel, and were only swept along with the discharge rather than make use of windage. These projectiles were called "coviatives."[19] Fire lances branched off into several different forms called "eruptors" in the 12th and 13th centuries, with different functions such as the "filling-the-sky erupting tube" which spewed out poisonous gas and porcelain shards, the "orifice-penetrating flying sand magic mist tube" (鑽穴飛砂神霧筒) which spewed forth sand and poisonous chemicals into orifices, and the more conventional "phalanx-charging fire gourd" which shot out lead pellets.[42] The commonplace nature of the fire lance, if not in quantity, was apparent by the mid 13th century, and in 1257 an arsenal in Jiankang Prefecture reported the manufacture of 333 "fire emitting tubes" (突火筒). In 1259 a type of "fire-emitting lance" (突火槍) made an appearance and according to the History of Song: "It is made from a large bamboo tube, and inside is stuffed a pellet wad (子窠). Once the fire goes off it completely spews the rear pellet wad forth, and the sound is like a bomb that can be heard for five hundred or more paces."[42][54][55][56][57] The pellet wad mentioned may be the first true bullet in recorded history depending on how bullet is defined, as it did occlude the barrel, unlike previous coviatives used in the fire lance.[42] The character for lance, or spear (槍), has continued to refer to both the melee weapon and the firearm into modern China, perhaps as a reminder of its original form as simply a tube of gunpowder tied to a spear.

Archaeological samples of the gun, more specifically the cannon, or the hand cannon (huochong), started appearing in the 13th century. The oldest extant gun whose dating is unequivocal is the Xanadu Gun, so called because it was discovered in the ruins of Xanadu, the Mongol summer palace in Inner Mongolia. The Xanadu Gun is 34.7 cm in length and weighs 6.2 kg. The era name and date corresponds with the Gregorian Calendar at 1298 CE. Its dating is based on archaeological context and a straightforward inscription whose era name and year corresponds with 1298. Not only does the inscription contain the era name and date, it also includes a serial number and manufacturing information which suggests that gun production had already become systematized, or at least become a somewhat standardized affair by the time of its fabrication. The design of the gun includes axial holes in its rear which some speculate could have been used in a mounting mechanism. Like most early guns with the possible exception of the Western Xia gun, it is small, weighing just over six kilograms and thirty-five centimeters in length.[58] Although the Xanadu Gun is the most precisely dated gun from the 13th century, other extant samples with approximate dating likely predate it. One candidate is the Heilongjiang hand cannon, discovered in 1970, and named after the province of its discovery, Heilongjiang, in northeastern China.[59][60] Based on contextual evidence, historians believe it was used by Yuan forces against a rebellion by Mongol prince Nayan in 1287. It is small and light like the Xanadu gun at 3.5 kilograms, 34 cm (Needham says 35 cm), and a bore of approximately 2.5 cm.[61]

Even older, the Ningxia gun was found in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region by collector Meng Jianmin (孟建民). This Yuan dynasty firearm is 34.6 cm long, the muzzle 2.6 cm in diameter, and weighs 1.55 kilograms. The firearm contains a transcription reading, "Made by bronzesmith Li Liujing in the year Zhiyuan 8 (直元), ningzi number 2565" (銅匠作頭李六徑，直元捌年造，寧字二仟伍百陸拾伍號). Similar to the Xanadu Gun, it has a serial number 2565, which suggests that it was part of a series of guns manufactured. While the era name and date corresponds with the Gregorian Calendar at 1271 CE, which would put it earlier than both the Heilongjiang Hand Gun as well as the Xanadu Gun, one of the characters used in the era name is irregular, causing some doubt among scholars on the exact date of production.[62] The firearm contains a transcription reading, "Made by bronzesmith Li Liujing in the year Zhiyuan 8 (直元), ningzi number 2565."[62]

Another sample was discovered in 1980, and possibly the oldest as well as largest of the 13th century: a 100 centimeter 108 kilogram bronze cannon discovered in a cellar in Gansu Province containing no inscription, but has been dated by historians to the late Western Xia period between 1214 and 1227. The gun contained an iron ball about nine centimeters in diameter, which is smaller than the muzzle diameter at twelve centimeters, and a tenth of a kilogram of gunpowder in it when discovered, meaning that the projectile might have been another coviative.[63] Ben Sinvany and Dang Shoushan believe that the ball used to be much larger prior to its highly corroded state at the time of discovery.[64] While large in size, the weapon is noticeably more primitive than later Yuan dynasty guns, and is unevenly cast. A similar weapon was discovered not far from the discovery site in 1997, but much smaller in size at only 1.5 kg.[65] Chen Bingying disputes this however, and argues there were no guns before 1259, while Dang Shoushan believes the Western Xia guns point to the appearance of guns by 1220, and Stephen Haw goes even further by stating that guns were developed as early as 1200.[62] Sinologist Joseph Needham and renaissance siege expert Thomas Arnold provide a more conservative estimate of around 1280 for the appearance of the "true" cannon.[66][67] Whether or not any of these are correct, it seems likely that the gun was born sometime during the 13th century.[65]

An illustration of a 'flying-cloud thunderclap-eruptor,' a proto-cannon firing thunderclap bombs, from the 14th century Huolongjing.

Stoneware bombs, known in Japanese as Tetsuhau (iron bomb), or in Chinese as Zhentianlei (thunder crash bomb), excavated from the Takashima shipwreck, October 2011, dated to the Mongol invasions of Japan (1271-1284 AD).

Although the oldest extant guns appear in the Yuan dynasty, there is a surprising scarcity of reliable evidence of guns in Iran or Central Asia prior to the late 14th century, nor in the Middle East prior to the 1360s, while Russian records do not contain reliable mentions of firearms until 1382, after the gun's arrival in Europe, despite their closer proximity and interactions with the Mongol empires.[68] There is however some evidence that do point to the possible appearance of guns in Andalusia as early as the 1330s.[68] Of this Thomas Allsen says that "in the Latin West the first uncontestable evidence of firearms is from 1326, surprisingly somewhat earlier than in the lands that lie between China ... and western Europe.[68] This has caused some doubt among historians on the gun transmission theory, and even whether or not there was a transmission at all.[69] One dissident opinion comes from Stephen Morillo, Jeremy Black, and Paul Lococo's War in World History which argues that "the sources are not entirely clear about Chinese use of gunpowder in guns. There are references to bamboo and iron cannons, or perhaps proto-cannons, but these seem to have been small, unreliable, handheld weapons in this period. The Chinese do seem to have invented guns independently of the Europeans, at least in principle; but, in terms of effective cannon, the edge goes to Europe,"[70] emphasizing an independent tradition and evolution of guns, but not gunpowder, unconnected to China's own. There is another independent invention theory supporting an Islamic origin of the gun, citing the Mamluk deployment of hand cannons in 1260 and the passage by Ibn Khaldun on the Marinid Siege of Sijilmassa in 1274: "[ The Sultan] installed siege engines … and gunpowder engines …, which project small balls of iron. These balls are ejected from a chamber … placed in front of a kindling fire of gunpowder; this happens by a strange property which attributes all actions to the power of the Creator."[71] This passage and its interpretation has mostly been rejected as anachronistic by most historians, who urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204-1324 period as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, naft, as they did for an earlier incendiary, naphtha.[72][73]

Historian Tonio Andrade stands on the opposite end in the gun transmission debate, noting that while records of gunpowder weapons and its evolution into the gun exist in China, "there are no records of any such developments in Europe,"[68] and that the arrival of the gun in Europe was such that it "appears fully formed around 1326."[68] This is not strictly true, as Kelly DeVries points out that compilers of early gunpowder recipes in Europe understood that should the instrument carrying gunpowder be enclosed on one end, the gunpowder reaction inside would produce "flying fire."[71] Andrade goes on to analyze the nature and etymology of gunpowder in Europe and comes to the conclusion that it is intrinsically in favor of the transmission theory rather than an independent invention. There are the older and more numerous formulas of gunpowder using a variety of different proportions of key ingredients - saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal - which he believes is proof of its evolution and experimentation in China, where gunpowder was first applied to warfare as an incendiary, then explosive, and finally as a propellant. In contrast gunpowder formulas in Europe appear both later and offer very little divergence from the already ideal proportions for the purpose of creating an explosive and propellant powder.[74] Another facet of the gunpowder transmission theory is the appearance of gunpowder in Europe ready made for military usage, and is generally referred to as gunpowder rather than a civilian term such as the Chinese "fire-drug," which suggests an originally non-military usage, whereas in Europe it was almost immediately and exclusively used for its military qualities.[75] Muslim terms of saltpeter may also point toward a gunpowder transmission, if not the gun itself, as an Andalusian botanist referred to it as "Chinese snow," while in Persia it was called "Chinese salt."[75] Perhaps even further in the Sinocentric gun transmission camp is Joseph Needham who claims that "all the long preparations and tentative experiments were made in China, and everything came to Islam and the West fully fledged, whether it was the fire-lance or the explosive bomb, the rocket or the metal-barrel hand-gun and bombard."[68] However, theories of European as well as Islamic origins for the gun still persist today in tandem with the transmission theory.[71]

There are problems on both extremes of the gun transmission debate. Its proponents emphasize the older history of gunpowder evolution as attested by historical records and archaeological samples in China, its less obviously militarily focused name as "fire medicine," the Mongol role as a catalyst in disseminating gunpowder technology, and criticizes the scant or absent evidence of prior experimentation with gunpowder in Europe for non-military purposes before the arrival of the gun.[76] However, there are still several blanks in the history of a gun transmission theory and the questions they raise which its proponents have been unable to answer. The rapid spread of guns across Eurasia, only 50 years from China to Europe, with non-existent evidence of its route from one extreme of the continent to the other, remains a mystery. Other Chinese inventions such as the compass, paper, and printing took centuries to reach Europe, with events such as the Battle of Talas as perhaps a possible takeoff point for discussion. No such event exists on record for either gunpowder or the gun. There is simply no clear route of transmission,[75] and while the Mongols are often pointed to as the likeliest vector, Timothy May points out that "there is no concrete evidence that the Mongols used gunpowder weapons on a regular basis outside of China."[77] A conclusion most military historians in the transmission camp have come to is that the rapid diffusion of gunpowder and the gun is probably best explained by its clear military applications.[75]

On the other side of the debate, opponents of the theory criticize the vagueness of Chinese records on the specific usage of gunpowder in weaponry, the existence of gunpowder or possibly lack thereof in incendiary weapons as described by Chinese documents, the weakness of Chinese firearms, the non-existent route of diffusion or evidence of guns between Europe and China before 1326, and emphasize the independent evolution of superior guns in Europe.[76] This too becomes problematic as already discussed above. Notably there is an acute dearth of any significant evidence of evolution or experimentation with gunpowder or gunpowder weapons leading up to the gun in 1326, which can be found in China.[78] Gunpowder appeared in Europe primed for military usage as an explosive and propellant, bypassing a process which took Chinese experimentation with gunpowder weaponry centuries to reach, making a nearly instantaneous and seamless transition into gun warfare, as its name suggests. Bert S. Hall explains this phenomenon in his Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics by drawing upon the gunpowder transmission theory, explaining that "gunpowder came [to Europe], not as an ancient mystery, but as a well-developed modern technology, in a manner very much like twentieth-century 'technology-transfer' projects."[75] In a similar vein Peter Lorge supposes that the Europeans experienced gunpowder "free from preconceived notions of what could be done," in contrast to China, "where a wide range of formulas and a broad variety of weapons demonstrated the full range of possibilities and limitations of the technologies involved."[79] There is also the vestige of Chinese influence, and not European, on Muslim terminology of some gunpowder related items such as saltpeter, which has been described as either Chinese snow or salt, fireworks which were called Chinese flowers, and rockets which were called Chinese arrows.[76] Thomas Arnold believes that the similarities between early European cannons and contemporary Chinese models suggests a direct transmission of cannon making knowledge from China rather than a home grown development.[80] Whatever the truth may be, the first unambiguous references to guns appeared in Europe in the 1320s.[75]

One theory of how gunpowder came to Europe is that it made its way along the Silk Road through the Middle East; another is that it was brought to Europe during the Mongol invasion in the first half of the 13th century,[81][82] or during the subsequent diplomatic and military contacts (see Franco-Mongol alliance). William of Rubruck, an ambassador to the Mongols in 1254–1255 and a personal friend of Roger Bacon, is also often designated as a possible intermediary in the transmission of gunpowder know-how between the East and the West.[82][83] Several sources mention Chinese firearms and gunpowder weapons being deployed by the Mongols against European forces at the Battle of Mohi in 1241.[84][85][86] Professor Kenneth Warren Chase credits the Mongols for introducing into Europe gunpowder and its associated weaponry.[87] A medieval European work describing the powerful weapons that had been built by the Chinese,[88] has been suggested by historian Kenneth Warren Chase to be referring to the Chinese invention of gunpowder.[89]

One of the earliest European references to gunpowder is found in Roger Bacon's Epistola de secretis operibus artiis et naturae from 1267.[82][90] The oldest written recipes for gunpowder in Europe were recorded under the name Marcus Graecus or Mark the Greek between 1280 and 1300.[91] However, the very first time gunpowder was used in Europe for military purposes was in 1262, when king Alfonso X of Castile set siege to the city of Niebla in Spain whose Spanish-Arab inhabitants used some sort of primitive gun against the Spaniards.[92]

..The Arabs threw many (iron) balls launched with thunder, the Christians were very afraid of, as any member of the body hit was severed as if with a knife; and the wounded man died afterwards, because no surgery could heal him, in part because the balls were hot as fire, and apart of that, because the powders used were of such nature that any ulcer done meant the death of the injured man...

.. and he was hit with a ball of the thunder in the arm, and (the arm) was cut off, and died next day: and the same happened to all of those injured by the thunder. And even now the story is being told amongst the host...

Some scholars have pointed to a passage by the Armenian monk Hetoum in the year 1307 as a possible reference to guns. Although it does not mention guns directly, Hetoum says this about China:[89]

The men of this countrey ar no stronge warryours nor valyant in armes, but they be moche subtyll and ingenyous; by mean wherof, often tymes they haue disconfyted and ouercome their ennymes by their engyns, and they haue dyuers sortes and maners of armours and engyns of warre whiche other nacions haue not.

There is a record of a gun in Europe dating to 1322 being discovered in the nineteenth century but the artifact has since been lost.[71] The earliest known European depiction of a gun appeared in 1326 in a manuscript by Walter de Milemete, although not necessarily drawn by him, known as De Nobilitatibus, sapientii et prudentiis regum (Concerning the Majesty, Wisdom, and Prudence of Kings), which displays a gun with a large arrow emerging from it and its user lowering a long stick to ignite the gun through the touchole[93] P[75] In the same year, another similar illustration showed a darker gun being set off by a group of knights, which also featured in another work of de Milemete's, De secretis secretorum Aristotelis.[94] On 11 February of that same year, the Signoria of Florence appointed two officers to obtain canones de mettallo and ammunition for the town's defense.[95] In the following year a document from the Turin area records a certain amount was paid "for the making of a certain instrument or device made by Friar Marcello for the projection of pellets of lead."[75] A reference from 1331 describes an attack mounted by two Germanic knights on Cividale del Friuli, using gunpowder weapons of some sort.[93][75] The 1320s seem to have been the takeoff point for guns in Europe according to most modern military historians. Scholars suggest that the lack of gunpowder weapons in a well-traveled Venetian's catalogue for a new crusade in 1321 implies that guns were unknown in Europe up until this point, further solidifying the 1320 mark, however more evidence in this area may be forthcoming in the future.[75]

From the 1320s guns spread rapidly across Europe. The French raiding party that sacked and burned Southampton in 1338 brought with them a ribaudequin and 48 bolts (but only 3 pounds of gunpowder).[93] By 1341 the town of Lille had a "tonnoire master," and a tonnoire was an arrow-hurling gun. In 1345, two iron cannons were present in Toulouse. In 1346 Aix-la-Chapelle too possessed iron cannons which shot arrows (busa ferrea ad sagittandum tonitrum).[96] The Battle of Crécy in 1346 was one of the first in Europe where cannons were used.[97] Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani describes the deployment of firearms thus, "The English king arranged his archers, of whom he had many, on the carts, and some below and with guns [bombarde] that threw out small iron pellets [pallottole] with fire, to frighten the French horsemen and cause them to desert."[98] Another incident in the summer of 1346 involved a man by the name of Peter de Bruges who demonstrated to the consuls of Tournai the power of an arrow shooting gun, which went off making "a terrible and tremendous noise," and the arrow flew over the town, landing in a monastery plaza, unceremoniously killing a man by headshot.[99] De Bruges ran in fear of prosecution but the consuls judged the incident an accident of no fault of his own.[99] Two years later the town of Deventer had in its possession three cannons, or dunrebussen, and Frankfurt had cannons that shot arrows (büzenpzle), while the city of Rouen reported a "pot that shot iron arrows with fire" (pot de fer à traire garros à feu).[99] In 1350 Petrarch wrote that the presence of cannons on the battlefield was 'as common and familiar as other kinds of arms'.[100]

Along with the transmission and growing use of guns in Europe also came an infamous reputation. At least three Europeans in the 14th century described guns as either abnormal or inhuman. For instance, in 1344 Petrarch writes, "I wonder that thou hast not also brazen globes, which are cast forth by the force of flame with a horrible sound of thunder. Was not the wrath of an immortal god thundering from heaven sufficient, that the small being man— oh cruelty joined to pride— must even thunder on earth? Human rage has endeavored to imitate the thunder which cannot be imitated … and that which is wont to be sent from the clouds is now thrown from an infernal instrument."[99] furthermore he compares guns to the plague, "This plague was only recently so rare as to be looked on as a miracle; now … it has become as common as any other kind of weapon."[99] Englishman John Mirfield describes the gun as "that devilish instrument of war colloquially termed gunne,"[99] and Francesco di Giorgio Martini thought likewise of the discovery of guns and gunpowder, attributing it "not to human but to devilish agency."[99] In the history of early European guns, Christian authorities made vehement remarks against the use of gunpowder weapons, calling them blasphemous and part of the 'Black Arts'. By the mid-14th century, however, even the army of the Papal States would be armed with artillery and gunpowder weapons.[101]

Among the oldest archaeological examples of guns in Europe, there are two pieces from Sweden, the Loshult gun, and lesser known Morko gun. Possibly Europe's oldest extant firearm, the Loshult gun is a cast-bronze gun in the shape of a vase discovered in 1861 and named after the Swedish parish where the farmer dug it up. It is generally dated to around the mid 14th century and measures 31 cm overall, at a weight of 9.050 kilograms; the bore at the muzzle is 36 mm narrowing down to 31 mm on its way to the rear. A replica made by scholars has performed well shooting both arrows and other projectiles such as lead balls, grapeshot, and pieces of flint. The arrows and lead balls proved capable of penetrating late medieval plate armor as well as hitting a stationary target 200 meters away. However scholars believe the gun was primarily used for short range engagements because of the deep ruts and scratches in the barrel, which suggests that it carried shrapnel, an inaccurate but deadly projectile. It is now preserved in the Statens Historiska Museet Stockholm, inv.-no. 2891.[102] The Morko gun was found by a fisherman in the Baltic Sea at the coast of Södermansland near Nynäs before 1828 and dates to around the same period as the Loshult gun, ca. 1390.[103] In Germany the oldest gun is the Tannenberg handgonne discovered in 1849 at the bottom of a water well of the 1399 destroyed Tannenberg castle in Hessen.[104] It was found with a lead ball still loaded, and its wooden staff nearby, which started decaying after being exposed to air. The gun was aimed using the wooden staff, which fit into the back socket of the gun.[105] References to gunnis cum telar (guns with handles) were recorded in 1350 and by 1411 it was recorded that John the Good, Duke of Burgundy, had 4000 handguns stored in his armory.[106]

Around the late 14th century European and Ottoman guns began to deviate in purpose and design from guns in China, changing from small anti-personnel and incendiary devices to the larger artillery pieces most people imagine today when using the word "cannon."[107] If the 1320s can be considered the arrival of the gun on the European scene, then the end of the 14th century may very well be the departure point from the trajectory of gun development in China. In the last quarter of the 14th century, European guns grew larger and began to blast down fortifications.[107]

Photo of a reconstruction of an arrow-firing cannon that appears in a 1326 manuscript.

Possibly the oldest surviving firearm in Europe, the Loshult gun was discovered in 1861 by a farmer in a Swedish parish, which the gun is named after. The Loshult gun is dated to the mid 14th century, 1330-50.

A picture of a 15th-century Andalusian Arab cannon from the book Al-izz wal rifa'a.

During the invasion of Transoxania in 1219, along with the main Mongol force, Genghis Khan used a Chinese specialist catapult unit in battle, they were used again in 1220 in Transoxania, and during the 1239–1240 invasion of the Caucasus. The Chinese may have used the catapults to hurl gunpowder bombs, since they already had them by this time.[78] While Genghis Khan was conquering Transoxania and Persia, several Chinese who were familiar with gunpowder were serving with Genghis's army.[108] Historians have suggested that the Mongol invasion had brought Chinese gunpowder weapons to Central Asia. One of these was the huochong, a Chinese mortar.[109]

The Muslim world acquired knowledge of gunpowder some time after 1240, but before 1280, by which time Hasan al-Rammah had written, in Arabic, recipes for gunpowder, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries. Gunpowder arrived in the Middle East, possibly through India, from China. This is implied by al-Rammah's usage of "terms that suggested he derived his knowledge from Chinese sources" and his references to saltpeter as "Chinese snow" Arabic: ثلج الصين‎‎ thalj al-ṣīn, fireworks as "Chinese flowers" and rockets as "Chinese arrows".[110] However, because al-Rammah attributes his material to "his father and forefathers", al-Hassan argues that gunpowder became prevalent in Syria and Egypt by "the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth". Persians called saltpeter "Chinese salt"[111][112][113][114][115] or "salt from Chinese salt marshes" (namak shūra chīnīPersian: نمک شوره چيني‎‎).[116][117] Al-Baytar, an Arab from Spain who had immigrated to Egypt, wrote in Arabic that "snow of China" Arabic: ثلج الصين‎‎ thalj al-ṣīn was the name used to describe saltpeter. Al-Baytar died in 1248.[118] C. F. Temler interprets Peter, Bishop of Leon, as reporting the use of cannon in Seville in 1248.[119]

Hand cannons were reported to have been used in the Battle of Ain Jalut by the Mamluks against the Mongols,[120] however the earliest surviving documentary evidence for the use of the hand cannon in the Islamic world are from several Arabic manuscripts dated to the 14th century.[121] Khan claims that it was invading Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world[122] and cites Mamluk antagonism towards early riflemen in their infantry as an example of how gunpowder weapons were not always met with open acceptance in the Middle East.[123] Similarly, the refusal of their Qizilbash forces to use firearms contributed to the Safavid rout at Chaldiran in 1514.[123]

Hasan al-Rammah also describes the purifying of saltpeter using the chemical processes of solution and crystallization. This was the first clear method for the purification of saltpeter.[124] The earliest torpedo was also first described in 1270 by Hasan al-Rammah in The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices, which illustrated a torpedo running with a rocket system filled with explosive materials and having three firing points.[125][126]

Gunpowder technology is believed to have arrived in India by the mid-14th century, but could have been introduced much earlier by the Mongols, who had conquered both China and some borderlands of India, perhaps as early as the mid-13th century. The unification of a large single Mongol Empire resulted in the free transmission of Chinese technology into Mongol conquered parts of India. Regardless, it is believed that the Mongols used Chinese gunpowder weapons during their invasions of India.[127] It was written in the Tarikh-i Firishta (1606–1607) that the envoy of the Mongol ruler Hulegu Khan was presented with a dazzling pyrotechnics display upon his arrival in Delhi in 1258 AD.[128] The first gunpowder device, as opposed to naphtha-based pyrotechnics, introduced to India from China in the second half of the 13th century, was a rocket called the "hawai" (also called "ban").[129] The rocket was used as an instrument of war from the second half of the 14th century onward,[129] and the Delhi sultanate as well as Bahmani kingdom made good use of them.[130] As a part of an embassy to India by Timurid leader Shah Rukh (1405–1447), 'Abd al-Razzaq mentioned naphtha-throwers mounted on elephants and a variety of pyrotechnics put on display.[131] Roger Pauly has written that "while gunpowder was primarily a Chinese innovation," the saltpeter that led to the invention of gunpowder may have arrived from India, although it is also likely that it originates indigenously in China.[132]

Firearms known as top-o-tufak also existed in the Vijayanagara Empire of India by as early as 1366 AD.[128] By 1442 guns had a clearly felt presence in India as attested to by historical records.[68] From then on the employment of gunpowder warfare in India was prevalent, with events such as the siege of Belgaum in 1473 AD by the Sultan Muhammad Shah Bahmani.[133]

Korea first began production of gunpowder between the years 1374–76.[134] In the 14th century a Korean scholar named Choe Museon discovered a way to produce it after visiting China and bribing a merchant by the name of Li Yuan for the gunpowder formula.[135] In 1377 he figured out how to extract potassium nitrate from the soil and subsequently invented the juhwa, Korea's first rocket,[136] and further developments led to the birth of singijeons, Korean arrow rockets. The multiple rocket launcher known as hwacha ("fire cart" 火車) was developed from the juhwa and singijeon in Korea by 1409 during the Joseon Dynasty. Its inventors include Yi Do (이도, not to be mistaken for Sejong the Great, even though their names sounds similar) and Choi Hae-san (최해산, son of Choe Museon).[137][138] However the first hwachas did not fire rockets, but utilized mounted bronze guns that shot iron-fletched darts.[139] Rocket launching hwachas were developed in 1451 under the decree of King Munjong and his younger brother Pe. ImYung (Yi Gu, 임영대군 이구). This "Munjong Hwacha" is the well-known type today, and could fire 100 rocket arrows or 200 small Chongtong bullets at one time with changeable modules. At the time, 50 units were deployed in Hanseong (present-day Seoul), and another 80 on the northern border. By the end of 1451, hundreds of hwachas were deployed throughout Korea.[137][140]

Naval gunpowder weapons also appeared and were rapidly adopted by Korean ships for conflicts against Japanese pirates in 1380 and 1383. By 1410, 160 Korean ships were reported to have equipped artillery of some sort. Mortars firing thunder-crash bombs are known to have been used, and four types of cannons are mentioned: chonja (heaven), chija (earth), hyonja (black), and hwangja (yellow), but their specifications are unknown. These cannons typically shot wooden arrows tipped with iron, the longest of which were nine feet long, but stone and iron balls were sometimes used as well.[141]

Firearms seem to have first appeared in Japan around 1270 as proto-cannons invented in China, which the Japanese called teppō (鉄砲 lit. "iron cannon").[142] Gunpowder weaponry exchange between China and Japan was slow and only a small number of hand guns ever reached Japan. The most well known case is a Buddhist priest's acquirement of a teppō iron cannon during his trip to China, and his presentation of it to Hōjō Ujitsuna in 1510.[143] However gunpowder weapons saw very little use in Japan until Portuguese firearms were introduced in 1543.[144] During the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598), the forces of Toyotomi Hideyoshi effectively utilized matchlock firearms against the Korean forces of Joseon,[145] although they would ultimately be defeated and forced to withdraw from the Korean peninsula.

A depiction of the "crouching tiger cannon" from the Huolongjing (1350)

Drawing of a Great General Cannon, from 'Wu Bei Yao Lue (《武備要略》').

The 15th through 18th centuries saw widespread development in gunpowder technology. Progress in Europe and the aggressive application of technological improvements eventually led to gunpowder warfare on a scale and to an effect unprecedented anywhere else. This marked departure of European society from the rest of the world is usually known as the Great Divergence, a term coined by Samuel P. Huntington. Gunpowder remained of central importance until it was replaced by more advanced explosives beginning in the 1860s.

Gun development and proliferation in China continued under the Ming dynasty. The success of its founder Zhu Yuanzhang, who declared his reign to be the era of Hongwu, or "Great Martiality," has often been attributed to his effective use of guns. Early Ming military codes stipulated that ideally 10 percent of all soldiers should be gunners.By 1380 the Ming dynasty boasted around 130,000 gunners out of its 1.3 to 1.8 million strong army. Under the Hongwu Emperor's successors, the percentage climbed higher and by the 1440s it reached 20 percent. In 1466 the ideal composition was 30 percent. The Hongwu Emperor created a Bureau of Armaments (軍器局) which was tasked with producing every three years 3000 handheld bronze guns, 3000 signal cannons, and ammunition as well as accoutrements such as ramrods. His Armory Bureau (兵仗局) was responsible for producing types of guns known as "great generals," "secondary generals," "tertiary generals," and "gate-seizing generals." Other firearms such as "miraculous [fire] lances," "miraculous guns," and "horse-beheading guns" were also produced. It is unclear what proportion or how many of each type were actually manufactured.[146] However most early Ming guns weighed only two to three kilograms while guns considered "large" at the time weighed around only seventy-five kilograms. A gun known as the "Great Bowl-Mouth Tube" (大碗口筒) dated to 1372 weighs only 15.75 kilograms and was 36.5 centimeters long, its muzzle 11 centimeters in diameter. Other excavated guns of this type range from 8.35 to 26.5 kilograms. While they were usually mounted on ships or gates they were also relatively small compared to the cannons of the 16th to 17th centuries associated with naval warfare. Ming sources suggest guns such as these shot stones and iron balls, but were primarily used against men rather than for causing structural damage to ships or walls. Accuracy was low and they were limited to a range of only 50 paces or so.[147]

Despite the relatively small size of Ming guns, some elements of gunpowder weapon design followed world trends.[148] The growing length to muzzle bore ratio matched the rate at which European guns were developing up until the 1450s. The practice of corning gunpowder had been developed by 1370 for the purpose of increasing explosive power in land mines,[148] and was arguably used in guns as well according to one record of a fire-tube shooting a projectile 457 meters, which was probably only possible at the time with the usage of corned powder.[149] Around the same year Ming guns transitioned from using stone shots to iron ammunition, which has greater density and increased firearm power.[150]

Guns as well as other gunpowder weapons were used in abundance during the famous Battle of Lake Poyang which lasted from 30 August to 4 October 1363. There were at least a hundred vessels and approximately 500,000 combatants altogether involved, although traditional numbers have gone even higher. Poyang Lake was situated on a strategic location connecting the Yangtze with other river basins and in the early 1360s Zhu Yuanzhang held key garrisons on the lake, which he administered from Nanjing 560 kilometers downriver. Upstream was the state of Han (大漢; Pinyin: Dahan, "Great Han") under Chen Youliang, who set out to wrest control of the lake from Zhu Yuanzhang. Chen's force consisted of "tower ships" designed for depositing soldiers on riverside city walls rather than waterborne combat, and the purpose of these ships was to capture the city of Nanchang, which guarded Lake Poyang from the south. This proved futile as the city defenders simply moved the walls back, and Chen was forced to personally lead an assault on the city gates, which was met with a counterattack with huochong (early Ming guns), and they were driven back. After this failure, Chen set up a blockade, determined to starve out the defenders, but a small fishing boat managed to slip out and reached Nanjing in time to warn Zhu Yuanzhang.[151]

Zhu's fleet arrived at Poyang Lake on 29 August faced with Chen's larger force and was outnumbered three to two. According to one Ming source, Zhu's force arrived armed with "fire bombs, fire guns, fire arrows, fire seeds [probably grenades], large and small fire lances, large and small 'commander' fire-tubes, large and small iron bombs, rockets."[152] This shows that older gunpowder weapons co-existed alongside guns, and proto-guns such as fire lances were not supplanted until after early Ming. A new weapon called the "No Alternative" was also mentioned. The No Alternative was "made from a circular reed mat about five inches around and seven feet long that was pasted over with red paper and bound together with silk and hemp— stuffed inside it was gunpowder twisted in with bullets and all kinds of [subsidiary] gunpowder weapons."[152] It was hung from a pole on the foremast, and when an enemy ship came into close range, the fuse was lit, and the weapon would supposedly fall onto the enemy ship, at which point things inside shot out "and burned everything to bits, with no hope of salvation."[152] Zhu's fleet engaged Chen's under orders to "get close to the enemy's ships and first set off gunpowder weapons (發火器), then bows and crossbows, and finally attack their ships with short range weapons."[153] Fire bombs were hurled using naval trebuchets and the Ming succeeded in "burning twenty or more enemy vessels and killing or drowning many enemy troops."[154] Ming eventually came out victorious by ramming and burning the enemy fleet with fire ships. While guns were used during the battle, ultimately they were not pivotal to success, and the battle was won using incendiary weapons.[155]

In 1358 at the Siege of Shaoxing the defenders "used ... fire tubes to attack the enemy's advance guard" against Ming.[156] The siege was won by the defenders, whose "fire tubes went off all at once, and the [attacker's] great army could not stand against them and had to withdraw."[157] Ming began fielding cannons in greater proportions during the Siege of Suzhou in 1366, but they were relatively small and were used primarily for killing human beings rather than creating a breech in the city's defensive fortifications. Suzhou's fortifications were previously rebuilt in 1352 and contemporary documents of the city wall record a width of eleven meters at the base, five meters at the top, seven meters high, and seventeen kilometers all around. The walls were constructed using tamped earth covered with brick and sloped from bottom to top. Ming commander Xu Da ordered the army to set up a blockade. Watchtowers 13 meters high were constructed, which the Ming Veritable Records notes "were placed bows and guns."[156] Each of the 48 Ming divisions (衛) were equipped with 50 large and small "general tubes" (大小將軍筒), a total of 2400 guns, and besieged the city. Large ones weighed only 80 kilograms or less and the majority were small ones which weighed a couple kilograms at most. The largest possibly a meter long with a muzzle diameter of 21 centimeters, but these would have been rare exceptions in the early Ming arsenal.[156] The lack of larger siege weapons in China unlike the rest of the world where cannons grew larger and more potent has been attributed to the immense thickness of traditional Chinese walls, which Tonio Andrade suggests provided no incentive for creating larger cannons, since even industrial artillery had trouble overcoming them.[156] Chinese walls during the Ming period continued the traditional building practices and nearly every prefectural and provincial capital was fortified with walls between 10 and 20 meters thick at the base and 5 to 10 meters wide at the top.[158]

Each division was also equipped with five XiangyangTrebuchets and five "Seven-Component Trebuchets" (七梢炮), which were used to destroy wooden structure on the walls, but were unable to breech the walls themselves despite the fact that "the noise of the guns and the paos went day and night and didn't stop."[159] In a rare occurrence of Chinese history, the city defenses were eventually breached, but this happened through the gates, which were covered by an outwork, outer gate, and finally consisted of an inner gate. Rather than bombarding the entrance, the breach was made by traditional manual mining and battering. This was only possible because the defenders were already starving by mid-autumn of 1367 and unable to put up a proper resistance, succumbing to the onslaught of a frontal assault.[160] The battle continued inside the city where Zhang Shicheng's remaining 20 thousand troops engaged in street to street combat until he fled from his palace. His wives and concubines burned themselves to death. Zhang then tried to commit suicide, but was captured and taken back to Nanjing as "a guest."[161]

Despite the increasing quantity of guns fielded in battles and sieges, Ming guns remained small and limited to anti-personnel purposes, and were often not pivotal to the victory istelf.[161] The peak of Chinese cannon development is exemplified by the muzzle loading wrought iron "great general cannon" (大將軍炮), otherwise known by its heavier variant name "great divine cannon" (大神銃), which could weigh up to 1000 kilograms and was capable of firing several iron balls and upward of a hundred iron shots at once. The lighter "great general cannon" weighed up to 360 kilograms and could fire a 4.8 kilogram lead ball. The great general and divine cannons were the last indigenous Chinese cannon designs prior to the incorporation of European models in the 16th century.[162]

An "awe-inspiring long range cannon" alongside three great general cannons, Great Wall Museum, Badaling, China.

Korean version of the Hu Dun Pao, known as Hojunpo (호준포). Korean crouching tiger cannons tended to be smaller.

A "crouching tiger cannon" located at the Wolongtai Great Wall section, Xinyang, Henan, China.

The development of large artillery pieces and larger guns began with Burgundy. Originally a minor power, it grew to become one of the most powerful states in 14th-century Europe, and a great innovator in siege warfare. The Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bold (1363-1404), based his power on the effective use of big guns and promoted research and development in all aspects of gunpowder weaponry technology. Philip established manufacturers and employed more cannon casters than any European power before him, however he wasn't the first to build large guns. The first appeared in 1375 when a dozen or so smiths in Caen developed a 900 kilogram cannon which took six weeks to create. Whereas most European guns before 1370 weighed about 20 to 40 lbs (9–14 kg), the French siege of Château de Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte in 1375 during the Hundred Years War saw the use of guns weighing over a ton (900 kg), firing stone balls weighing over 100 lbs (45 kg).[163] Philip used large guns to help the French capture the fortress of Odruik in 1377, which was held by the English at the time. These guns fired projectiles far larger than any that had been used before, and among the 140 cannons Philip brought to Odruik, 109 were large, with seven guns that could shoot projectiles as heavy as 90 kilograms. The cannons smashed the city walls, some going right through them, and Odruik surrendered, inaugurating a new era of artillery warfare. Burgundy's territories rapidly expanded using their new gun designs.[164]

Europe entered an arms race to build ever larger artillery pieces. Burgundy's guns continued to develop, and in the same year that Odruik fell, Philip's smith constructed a gun capable of shooting balls weighing 200 kilograms. In 1382 an "incredibly huge bombard"[165] was aimed at Oudenaarde, its muzzle 60 inches around and 20 inches in diameter. One observer described it thus, "One could hear it for five leagues in the daytime, and ten leagues at night, and it made such a huge noise that … it seemed as though all the demons of hell were present."[166] By the early 15th century both French and English armies were equipped with larger pieces known as bombards, weighing up to 5 tons (4,535 kg) and firing balls weighing up to 300 lbs (136 kg).[163] In 1404 a cannon was created with the inscription, "I am named Katrin. Beware of what I hold. I punish injustice."[167] In 1411 the cast iron cannon Faule Mette was created, and it was capable of shooting stone balls weighing 400 kilograms, but didn't very often.[167] The artillery trains used by Henry V of England in the 1415 Siege of Harfleur and 1419 Siege of Rouen proved effective in breaching French fortifications, while artillery contributed to the victories of French forces under Joan of Arc in the Loire Campaign (1429).[168] It wasn't just the English blasting their way through France either. Burgundy started by battering down the walls of Vellexon in 1409 and in 1411 they took Ham with only three shots from their bombard Griette.[167] France eventually came around under the reforms of King Charles V (1422-1461), whose leadership made France the premier artillery force in Europe, and won the Hundred Years' War. Gun developments in France would prove extremely effective during the Italian wars of the 1490s.[169] In 1431 a wrought-iron cannon was forged, weighing over 12,000 kilograms and could fire projectiles of 300 kilograms. It was called the Dulle Griet.[167] These weapons were transformational for European warfare. A hundred years earlier the Frenchman Pierre Dubois wrote that a "castle can hardly be taken within a year, and even if it does fall, it means more expenses for the king's purse and for his subjects than the conquest is worth,"[167] but by the 15th century European walls fell with the utmost regularity.

The Ottoman Empire was also developing their own artillery pieces. Mehmed the Conqueror (1432-1481) was determined to procure large cannons for the purpose of conquering Constantinople and paid handsomely as well as allowed creative autonomy for cannon makers. One of the cannon makers that responded to his call was a Hungarian named Urban, who left Byzantium after being denied a raise by the Byzantine emperor. Urban labored for four months to create a six meter long cannon, which required hundreds of pounds of gunpowder to fire, and its stone projectiles weighed between 550 and 800 kilograms. The gun's projectiles were reported to have flown for a mile before landing, and shook the entire ground when fired, the roar blasting four miles away. It had to be transported by 30 wagons pulled by 60 oxen, with the assistance of 200 handlers. An additional 50 carpenters and 200 laborers helped in the transport by leveling terrain and building bridges.[170] During the actual siege of Constantinople the gun proved to be somewhat underwhelming. The aiming process was laborious and after each shot it required hot oil ointment for cooling. Its rate of fire was once every three hours, and may have even suffered damage from cracks early on, never to be repaired.[171]

Fortunately for the Ottomans it wasn't Mehmed's only cannon. Dozens of other large cannons alongside 500 smaller cannons bombarded Constantinople's walls in their weakest sections for 55 days. A Greek contemporary, Kritoboulos, describes the scene thus, "The stone, borne with tremendous force and velocity, hit the wall, which it immediately shook and knocked down, and was itself broken into many fragments and scattered, hurling the pieces everywhere and killing those who happened by be near by. Sometimes it demolished a whole section, and sometimes a half-section, and sometimes a larger or smaller section of a tower or turret or battlement. And there was no part of the wall strong enough or resistant enough or thick enough to be able to withstand it, or to wholly resist such force and such a blow of the stone cannon-ball."[171] Mehmed's smaller artillery pieces also proved effective. Constantinople's defenders wielded their own formidable guns and "fired … five or ten bullets at a time, each about the size of a … walnut, and having a great power of penetration. If one of these hit an armed man it would go right through his shield and his body and go on to hit anyone else who happened to be in his way, and even a third, until the force of the powder diminished; so one shot might hit two or three men."[171] Despite the fierce defense, the city's fortifications were ultimately overwhelmed in a final assault and the sultan won the siege.

To counter the power of siege artillery, the star fort design for lower, wider fortifications was established in Italy by the mid-15th century, while the Florentine engineer Giuliano da Sangallo (1445-1516) developed a comprehensive defensive system of the geometric bastion and full trace italienne that became widespread throughout Italy in the 16th century.[172]

While China was the birthplace of gunpowder the guns there remained relatively small and light, weighing less than 80 kilograms or less for the large ones, and only a couple kilograms at most for the small ones during the early Ming era. Guns themselves had proliferated throughout China and become a common sight during sieges, so the question has arisen then why large guns were not first developed in China. According to Tonio Andrade, this wasn't a matter of metallurgy, which was sophisticated in China, and the Ming dynasty did construct large guns in the 1370s, but never followed up afterwards. Nor was it the lack of warfare, which other historians have suggested to be the case, but does not stand up to scrutiny as walls were a constant factor of war which stood in the way of many Chinese armies since time immemorial into the twentieth century. The answer Andrade provides is simply that Chinese walls were much less vulnerable to bombardment.[173] Andrade argues that traditional Chinese walls were built differently from medieval European walls in ways which made them more suitable for resisting cannon fire.

Chinese walls were bigger than medieval European walls and even in the mid-twentieth century a European expert in fortification commented on their immensity: "in China … the principal towns are surrounded to the present day by walls so substantial, lofty, and formidable that the medieval fortifications of Europe are puny in comparison."[173] Chinese walls were thick. Ming prefectural and provincial capital walls were ten to twenty meters thick at the base and five to ten meters at the top. In Europe the height of wall construction was reached under the Roman Empire, whose walls often reached 10 meters in height, the same as many Chinese city walls, but were only 1.5 to 2.5 meters thick. Rome's Servian Walls reached 3.6 and 4 meters in thickness and 6 to 10 meters in height. Other fortifications also reached these specifications across the empire, but all these paled in comparison to contemporary Chinese walls, which could reach a thickness of 20 meters at the base in extreme cases. Even the walls of Constantinople which have been described as "the most famous and complicated system of defence in the civilized world,"[169] could not match up to a major Chinese city wall.[158] Had both the outer and inner walls of Constantinople been combined, they would have only reached roughly a bit more than a third the width of a major wall in China.[158] European walls of the 1200s and 1300s could reach the Roman equivalents but rarely exceeded them in length, width, and height, remaining around 2 meters thick. It is apt to note that when referring to a very thick wall in medieval Europe, what is usually meant is a two and half meter thick wall, which would have been considered thin in a Chinese context.[174] Andrade goes on to further disparage medieval European fortifications, noting that the walls of the marketplace of Chang'an were thicker than the walls of major European capitals.[174]

Aside from their immense size, Chinese walls were also structurally different from the ones built in medieval Europe. Whereas European walls were for the most part constructed of stone with gravel or rubble filling and limestone mortar, Chinese walls had tamped earthen cores which absorbed the energy of artillery shots.[175] Walls were built using constructed wooden frameworks which were then filled with layers of earth tamped down to a highly compact state, and once that was completed the frameworks were removed for use in the next wall section. Starting from the Song dynasty these walls were improved with an outer layer of bricks or stone to prevent corrosion, and during the Ming, earthworks were interspersed with stone and rubble.[175] Most Chinese walls were also sloped rather than vertical to better deflect projectile energy.[176]

The Chinese Wall Theory essentially rests on a cost benefit hypothesis, where the Ming recognized the highly resistant nature of their walls to structural damage, and could not imagine any affordable development of the guns available to them at the time to be capable of breaching said walls. Even as late as the 1490s a Florentine diplomat considered the French claim that "their artillery is capable of creating a breach in a wall of eight feet in thickness"[177] to be ridiculous and the French "braggarts by nature."[177] In fact twentieth century explosive shells had some difficulty creating a breach in tamped earthen walls.[178] Andrade goes on to question whether or not Europeans would have developed large artillery pieces in the first place had they faced Chinese style walls so resistant to projectiles, coming to the conclusion that such exorbitant investments in weapons unable to serve their primary purpose would not have been ideal. Yet Chinese walls do not fully explain the divergence in gun development as European guns grew not only bigger, but more effective as well. By 1490 the European gun had achieved the basic form it would take for the next three centuries, during which it would dominate the fields of warfare.[179] The Classic Gun had arrived, and in the 1510s and 1520s when the Chinese encountered European firearms, they fully recognized they were superior to their own.[180]

The Stone City is the site of an ancient fortified city within Nanjing. Almost all of the original city is gone; all that remains are portions of the massive city wall.

Ten-barrelled firearm, each with a separate touch-hole for lighting and igniting, illustrated in the Artillery Manual (Huolong shenqi zhenfa), first published in 1412.

Asianist Kenneth Chase offers another theory as to why gun development stagnated during the Ming dynasty. Chase argues that guns were not particularly useful against China's traditional enemies: horse nomads.[181] Guns were supposedly problematic to deploy against nomads because of their size and slow speed, drawing out supply chains, and creating logistical challenges. Theoretically, the more mobile nomads took the initiative in sallying, retreating, and engaging at will. Chinese armies therefore relied less heavily on guns in warfare than Europeans, who fought large infantry battles and sieges which favored guns, or so Chase argues.

However, the Chase hypothesis has been refuted based on observations made by Tonio Andrade, who notes that the Asian nomad argument becomes problematic when viewed through a Chinese perspective.[181] For the Chinese themselves considered guns to be highly valuable against nomads. During the Ming-Mongol wars of the 1300s and early 1400s guns were utilized, notably in defending against a Mongol invasion in 1449, and guns were in high demand along the northern borders where gun emplacements were common.[181] Several sources make it clear that Chinese military leaders found guns to be highly effective against nomads throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. The military scholar Weng Wanda goes as far as to claim that only with firearms could one hope to succeed against the fast moving Mongols, and purchased special guns for both the Great Wall defenses and offensive troops who fought in the steppes. Andrade also points out that Chase downplays the amount of warfare going on outside of the northern frontier, specifically southern China where huge infantry battles and sieges such as in Europe were the norm. In 1368 the Ming army invaded Sichuan, Mongolia, and Yunnan. Although little mention of firearm is used in accounts of the Mongolia campaign, Ming cannons readily routed the war elephants of Yunnan,[182] and in the case of Sichuan, both sides employed equally potent firearms. When the Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang died, the civil war which ensued had Chinese armies fighting one another, again with equally powerful firearms. After the usurper Yongle's victory, the Ming embarked upon yet another five expeditions into Mongolia alongside an invasion of Dai Viet, many of their troops wielding firearms. In 1414 the Ming army clashed with an Oirat force near the Tula River and frightened them so much with their guns that the Oirats fled without their spare horses, only to be ambushed by concealed Chinese guns. According to a Chinese observer the Oirats avoided battle several days later, "fearing that the guns had arrived again."[183] In Vietnam, as with Yunnan, the war elephants fared poorly and were defeated with a combination of arrows and firearms. Chinese firearms were used in defensive fortifications to some effect, but were ineffective at targeting individual targets such as Vietnamese guerillas presented themselves.[184]

Chase's argument has also been criticized by by Stephen Morillo for its reliance on a simple cause and effect analysis.[185] Alternatively Morillo suggests that the major difference between Chinese and European weapon development was economic. Within Morillo's framework, European weapons were more competitive due to private manufacturing whereas Chinese weapons were manufactured according to government specifications. Although generally true, Peter Lorge points out that gun specifications were widespread in China, and ironically the true gun was first developed during the Song dynasty, when guns were the exclusive enterprise of the government, suggesting that the economics of production were less influential on gun development than assumed. In contrast, less innovation occurred during the Ming dynasty when most of production was shifted to the domain of private artisans.[185] Andrade concludes that although the Chase hypothesis should not be discarded outright, it does not offer a full explanation for the stagnation of firearm development in China.[186]

Gun development and design in Europe reached its "classic" form in the 1480s. The so-called Classic Gun is referred to thus for its longer, lighter, more efficient, and more accurate design compared to its predecessors only three decades prior. Indeed, cannons of the 1480s show little difference and surprising similarity with cannons three centuries later in the 1750s. This 300-year period during which the classic cannon dominated gives it its moniker.[187] The early classical European guns are exemplified by two cannons from 1488 now preserved in a plaza in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The Neuchâtel guns are 224 centimeters long, with a bore of 6.2 centimeters and the other is slightly longer, 252 centimeters, with the same bore size. Classical guns such as these are differentiated from older firearms by an assortment of improvements. Their longer length-to-bore ratio imparts more energy into the shot, enabling the projectile to shoot further. Not only longer, they were also lighter as the barrel walls were made thinner to allow for faster dissipation of heat. Classical guns also no longer needed the help of a wooden plug to load since they offered a tighter fit between projectile and barrel, further increasing the accuracy of gunpowder warfare.[188] Classical guns were deadlier due to the combination of new weapon developments such as gunpowder corning and the iron shot, which had been gradually adopted in Europe during the 1400s. When these guns reached China in the 1510s, the Chinese were highly impressed by them, primarily for their longer and thinner barrels.[189]

The two primary theories for the appearance of the classic gun involve the development of gunpowder corning and a new method for casting guns. The corning hypothesis stipulates that the longer barrels came about as a reaction to the development of corned gunpowder. Around the late 14th century European powdermakers began adding liquid to the constituents of gunpowder, which reduced dust, and with it the risk of explosion during manufacture. The powder makers would then shape the resulting paste of moistened gunpowder—known as mill cake—into "corns" or granules to allow it to dry. Not only did "corned" powder keep better, because of its reduced surface area, but gunners also found that it was more powerful and easier to load into guns. The main advantage of corning is that the flame lights all the granules when the gunpowder is lit, spreading between them before significant gas expansion has occurred. Without corning much of the powder, away from the initial flame, would be blown out of the barrel before it burnt. The size of the granules varied for different types of gun. Prior to corning, gunpowder would gradually demix into its constitutive components and was too unreliable for effective use in guns.[190] The same granulation process is used nowadays in the pharmaceutical industry to ensure that each tablet contains the same proportion of active ingredient. Before long, powdermakers standardized the process by forcing mill cake through sieves instead of corning powder by hand.[191] The faster gunpowder reaction was suitable for smaller guns, since large ones had a tendency to crack, and the more controlled reaction allowed large guns to have longer, thinner walls.[192] Although the logical follow through is sound, the corning hypothesis has been refuted for two reasons. One, the powder smiths were probably more worried about spoilage than the effect of corned gunpowder on guns, and two, corning as a practice had existed in China since the 1370s.[148] Europeans in particular faced a problem with obtaining pure saltpeter, specifically saltpeter consisting of potassium nitrate, rather than sodium nitrate or calcium nitrate. The latter two of which absorb water vapor more readily than potassium nitrate, thus corning was an imperative to producing proper weaponized gunpowder. Supposedly this was much less problematic for Asians, who had an easier time obtaining and manufacturing pure saltpeter.[192] In China gunpowder corning had been practiced since the 1370s for the purpose of strengthening the explosive power of mines, since gunpowder corns provided more space required for a rapid combustion.[148] Corned powder might also have been used in guns based on a record of a fire-tube shooting a projectile 457 meters, a feet probably only possible with the aid of corned powder at the time.[149]

The second theory comes from Kay Smith who points out that key to developing the classic gun may be a new method of gun casting, muzzle side up.[181] Smith observes: "The surviving pieces of ordnance from earlier in the 15th century are big pieces with large bore sizes. They do not look like the long thin gun.… Essentially they are parallel-sided tubes with flat ends. The explanation is, probably, that they were cast muzzle down in the traditional bell-founding method whereas the long thin guns were cast muzzle up.… Perhaps this marks the real 'revolution' in artillery. Once the technique of casting muzzle up with the attendant advantages, and it is not clear what those are at present, had been mastered by cannon founders, the way was open for the development of the 'classic' form of artillery."[181] However, Smith himself states that it is not clear what advantages this technique would have conferred, despite its widespread adoption.[181]

The arquebus, derived from the German Hackenbüchse, was a form of handgun that appeared in Germany during the late 15th century. Although the term arquebus was applied to many different forms of firearms from the 15th to 17th centuries, it was originally used to describe "a hand-gun with a hook-like projection or lug on its under surface, useful for steadying it against battlements or other objects when firing."[193] These "hook guns" were in their earliest forms defensive weapons mounted on German city walls in the early 1400s, but by the late 1400s had transitioned into handheld firearms, with heavier variants known as "muskets" that were fired from resting Y-shaped supports appearing by the early 1500s. The musket was able to penetrate all forms of armor available at the time, making armor obsolete, and as a consequence the heavy musket as well. Although there is relatively little to no difference in design between arquebus and musket except in size and strength, it was the term musket which remained in use down into the 1800s.[194] It may not be completely inaccurate to suggest that the musket was in its fabrication simply a larger arquebus. At least on one occasion the musket and arquebus have been used interchangeably to refer to the same weapon,[195] and even referred to as an "arquebus musket."[196] Habsburg commander in the mid-1560s once referred to muskets as "double arquebuses."[197] The definition of arquebus and similar firearms is therefore quite convoluted as the term has been applied to different sorts of firearms as well as acquiring several names like hackbut,[198]harquebus, schiopo,[199]sclopus,[200]tüfenk,[201]tofak,[202]matchlock, and firelock.[203] Some say that the hackbut was a forerunner of the arquebus.[204]

The matchlock firing mechanism became a common term for the arquebus after it was added to the firearm. Prior to the appearance of the matchlock, handguns were fired from the chest, tucked under one arm, while the other arm maneuvered a hot pricker to the touch hole to ignite the gunpowder.[205] The matchlock changed this by adding a firing mechanism consisting of two parts, the match, and the lock. The lock mechanism held within a clamp a two to three feet long length of smoldering rope soaked in saltpeter, which was the match.[205] Connected to the lock lever was a trigger, which lowered the match into a priming pan when pulled, igniting the priming powder, causing a flash to travel through the touch hole, also igniting the gunpowder within the barrel, and propelling the bullet out the muzzle.[206] While matchlocks provided a crucial advantage by allowing the user to aim the firearm using both hands, it was also awkward to utilize.[207] To avoid accidentally igniting the gunpowder the match had to be detached while loading the gun. In some instances the match would also go out, so both ends of the match were kept lit. This proved cumbersome to maneuver as both hands were required to hold the match during removal, one end in each hand. The procedure was so complex that a 1607 drill manual published by Jacob de Gheyn in the Netherlands listed 28 steps just to fire and load the gun.[207] In 1584 the Ming general Qi Jiguang composed an 11 step song to practice the procedure in rhythm: "One, clean the gun. Two pour the powder. Three tamp the powder down. Four drop the pellet. Five drive the pellet down. Six put in paper (stopper). Seven drive the paper down. Eight open the flashpan cover. Nine pour in the flash powder. Ten close the flashpan, and clamp the fuse. Eleven, listen for the signal, then open the flashpan cover. Aiming at the enemy, raise your gun and fire."[208] Reloading a gun during the 16th century took anywhere from between 20 seconds to a minute under the most ideal situations.[209]

The arquebus is considered to be the first portable "shoulder" arms firearm.[210] Arquebuses were used as early as 1472 by the Spanish and Portuguese at Zamora. Likewise, the Castilians used arquebuses as well in 1476.[211] In 1496 Philip Monch of the Palatinate composed an illustrated Buch der Strynt un(d) Buchsse(n) on guns and "harquebuses."[212] The Mamluks in particular were conservatively against the incorporation of gunpowder weapons. When faced with cannons and arquebuses wielded by the Ottomans they criticized them thus, "God curse the man who invented them, and God curse the man who fires on Muslims with them."[213] Insults were also levied against the Ottomans for having "brought with you this contrivance artfully devised by the Christians of Europe when they were incapable of meeting the Muslim armies on the battlefield."[213] Similarly, musketeers and musket-wielding infantrymen were despised in society by the feudalknights, even until the time of Cervantes (1547–1616 AD).[123] Eventually the Mamluks under Qaitbay were ordered in 1489 to train in the use of al-bunduq al-rasas (arquebuses). However in 1514 an Ottoman army of 12,000 soldiers wielding arquebuses still managed to rout a much larger Mamluk force.[213] The arquebus had become a common infantry weapon by the 16th century due to its relative cheapness - a helmet, breastplate and pike cost about three and a quarter ducats while an arquebus only a little over one ducat.[198][214] Another advantage of arquebuses over other equipment and weapons was its short training period. While a bow potentially took years to master, an effective arquebusier could be trained in just two weeks.[215] According to a 1571 report by Vincentio d'Alessandri, Persian arms including arquebuses "were superior and better tempered than those of any other nation."[195]

In the early 1500s a larger arquebus known as the musket appeared. The heavy musket, while being rather awkward to handle, requiring a fork rest to fire properly, had the advantage of being able to penetrate the best armor within a range of 180 meters, regular armor at 365 meters, and an unarmed man at 548 meters. However, both the musket and arquebus were effectively limited to a range of only 90 to 185 meters regardless of armor since they were incredibly inaccurate.[216] According to some sources, a smoothbore musket was completely incapable of hitting a man sized target past the 73 meter mark.[217] While rifled guns did exist at this time in the form of grooves cut into the interior of a barrel, these were considered specialist weapons and limited in numbers.[216] In some aspects this made the smoothbore musket an inferior weapon compared to the bow. The average Mamluk archer for example was capable of hitting targets only 68 meters far away but could keep up a pace of six to eight shots per minute. In comparison, sixteenth century matchlocks fired off one shot every several minutes, and much less when taking into consideration misfires and malfunctions which occurred up to half the time. This is not to say that firearms of the 16th century were inferior to the bow and arrow, for it could better penetrate armor and required less training, but the disadvantages of the musket were very real, and it would not be until the 1590s that archers were for the most part phased out of European warfare.[217] This was possibly a consequence of the increased effectiveness of musket warfare due to the rise of volley fire in Europe as first applied by the Dutch.[218] At this time gunners in European armies reached as high as 40 percent of infantry forces.[219]

As the virtues of the musket became apparent it was quickly adopted throughout Eurasia so that by 1560 even in China generals were giving praise to the new weapon. Qi Jiguang, a noted partisan of the musket, gave an eulogy on the effectiveness of the gun in 1560:

It is unlike any other of the many types of fire weapons. In strength it can pierce armor. In accuracy it can strike the center of targets, even to the point of hitting the eye of a coin [i.e., shooting right through a coin], and not just for exceptional shooters.… The arquebus [鳥銃] is such a powerful weapon and is so accurate that even bow and arrow cannot match it, and … nothing is so strong as to be able to defend against it.[220]

The volley fire, specifically the musketry volley technique, also known as the countermarch, is in its simplest form the idea of having soldiers shoot in turns.[209] Although volley fire is most often associated with firearms, the concept of continuous and concerted rotating fire was practiced using crossbows since at least the Tang dynasty. Both the encyclopedic text written in the Tang dynasty known as the Tongdian and the official History of Song contain mentions of the volley fire technique and elaborate on its usage. They two widely known illustrations of the volley fire formation from both the Tang and Song dynasties.[221] In 1131, crossbowmen employed the volley fire tactic to great effect under Song generals Wu Jie (吳玠) and his younger brother Wu Lin (吳璘) during the Jin-Song Wars.[222] In Europe volley fire was also used by archers, for example at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.[223]

The earliest possible occurrence of volley fire for firearms first appeared in late 14th century China during a conflict between the Ming and Mong Mao forces. Volley fire was also possibly implemented with firearms in 1414 during the Yongle Emperor's campaigns against the Mongols, and possibly again in another expedition in 1422. However the language used in these sources is unclear as to whether or not repeating fire was part of the technique implemented by the Ming. For example during the 1388 anti-insurrection war waged against the Mong Mao by the Ming general Mu Ying, the Ming troops equipped with guns and fire arrows were arrayed in three lines. The general Mu Ying explained this was so that "when the elephants advance, the front line of guns and arrows will shoot all at once. If they do not retreat, the next line will continue this. If they still do not retreat, then the third line will continue this."[224] When the armored war elephants broke into a run, charging the Ming lines, the Ming forces stood their ground, "shooting arrows and stones, the noise shaking the mountains and vallies. The elephants shook with fear and ran."[224] According to the Ming Shilu, half the elephants were killed while 37 were captured, and of the 100,000 strong insurrection force, at least 30,000 were killed, and 10,000 were captured.[225] Andrade and other historians have interpreted this passage as evidence of volley fire, however he admits that it is ambiguous as to whether or not the Ming lines practiced repeated fire and reloading, so at best it can only be considered a limited form of volley fire.[225]

The Ming Shilu goes on to mention another possible instance of volley fire, this time during the Yongle Emperor's campaigns against the Mongols. In 1414 "the commander-in-chief (都督) Zhu Chong led Lü Guang and others directly to the fore, where they assaulted the enemy by firing firearms and guns continuously and in succession. Countless enemies were killed."[225] In this case the source makes no mention of taking turns or forming lines, but Andrade believes that since the Ming were facing horseback Mongol forces, it would have been impossible to keep continuous fire in the face of a cavalry charge had volley fire not been implemented.[225] The same rationality is applied to another passage on the 1422 expedition, where "the emperor ordered that all the generals train their troops outside each encampment by arranging their formations so that the gunnery units (神機銃) occupied the foremost positions and the cavalry units occupied the rear. He ordered officers to exercise and drill in their free time (暇閑操習). He admonished them as follows: "A formation that is dense is solid, while an advance force is sparse, and when they arrive at the gates of war and it's time to fight, then first use the guns to destroy their advance guard and then use cavalry to rush their solidity. In this way there is nothing to fear.""[226] Some historians have extrapolated from this that the Ming forces were using volley fire with firearms since their opponents were cavalry units, and hence impossible to stop with slow firing hand cannons unless it was through continuous volley fire, much less with a thin advance guard of gunnery units. According to Wang Zhaochun, "the meaning of this is that when fighting, the gun troops line up in front of the entire formation, and between them there must be a certain amount of space, so that they can load bullets and powder and employ shooting by turns and in concert to destroy the enemy advance guard. Once the enemy has been thrown into chaos, the rear densely arrayed cavalry troops together come forth in great vigor, striking forth with irresistible force."[227] Even if Wang is correct, the evidence is still inconclusive.[227]

The volley tactic next appeared in early 16th century Europe when the Ottoman Janissaries clashed with European forces at the Battle of Mohács on 29 August 1526.[221] The Janissaries equipped with 2000 tüfenks (usually translated as musket) "formed nine consecutive rows and they fired their weapons row by row,"[228] in a "kneeling or standing position without the need for additional support or rest."[228] Contrary to the popular belief that the Ottomans' success at Mohács was due to their artillery, a view which many later historians have supported, European and Ottoman sources on the battle attribute their success to the Janissaries' successful deployment of firearms.[228] However the Janissaries' prowess declined early in the 17th century as troop standards dropped and the drill was abandoned. According to the author of The Laws of the Janissaries (Kavanin-i Yenigeriyan), by 1606 members of the Janissaries were faced with supply issues so that they "were no longer given powder for the drills and that the soldiers used the wick for their candles and not for their muskets."[228]

In 1548 the Ming started producing their own arquebuses after procuring knowledge of the weapon from the pirate network at Shuangyu Harbor (雙嶼港).[229] The military leader Qi Jiguang in particular realized the vital role of this new weapon in combating piracy, for it out ranged their heaviest arrows, and sought to incorporate them into his troops. By 1560 he had invented a style of musket warfare similar to the countermarch which he described the same year:

All the musketeers, when they get near the enemy are not allowed to fire early, and they're not allowed to just fire everything off in one go, [because] whenever the enemy then approaches close, there won't be enough time to load the guns (銃裝不及), and frequently this mismanagement costs the lives of many people. Thus, whenever the enemy gets to within a hundred paces' distance, they [the musketeers] are to wait until they hear a blast on the bamboo flute, at which they deploy themselves in front of the troops, with each platoon (哨) putting in front one team (隊). They [the musketeer team members] wait until they hear their own leader fire a shot, and only then are they allowed to give fire. Each time the trumpet gives a blast, they fire one time, spread out in battle array according to the drilling patterns. If the trumpet keeps blasting without stopping, then they are allowed to fire all together until their fire is exhausted, and it's not necessary [in this case] to divide into layers.[230]

— Ji xiao xin shu

In another passage he elaborates on his style of musket formation using layered musket volleys: "Once the enemy has approached to within 100-paces, listen for one's own commander (總) to fire once, and then each time a horn is blown the arquebusiers fire one layer. One after another, five horn tones, and five layers fire. Once this is done, listen for the tap of a drum, at which then one platoon (哨) [armed with traditional weapons] comes forward, proceeding to in front of the arquebusiers. They [the platoon members] then listen for a beat of the drum, and then the blowing of the swan-call horn, and they then give a war cry and go forth and give battle."[230] If melee weapons could not be brought into combat, such as during long range defense, Qi recommended waiting "until the face-the-enemy signal [is given], and then, whether from behind wooden stockades, or from moat banks, or from below abatis (拒馬), [they] open up on the enemy, firing by turns (更番射賊). Those who are empty reload; those who are full fire again. While the ones who have fired are loading, those who are full then fire again. In this way, all day long, the firing of guns will not be lacking, and there must be no firing to the point of exhaustion [of ammo] and no slipups with guns."[231] In 1571 Qi prescribed an ideal infantry regiment of 1080 arquebusiers out of 2700 men, or 40 percent of the infantry force. However it is not known how well this was actually implemented, and there is evidence that Qi was met with stiff resistance to the incorporation of newer gunpowder weapons in northern China while he was stationed there.[232] He writes that "in the north soldiers are stupid and impatient, to the point that they cannot see the strength of the musket, and they insist on holding tight to their fast lances (a type of fire lance), and although when comparing and vying on the practice field the musket can hit the bullseye ten times better than the fast-lance and five times better than the bow and arrow, they refuse to be convinced."[232]

The countermarch volley may have been used in Japan as well as early as 1575 at the Battle of Nagashino by Oda Nobunaga's arquebusiers.[233] But this has been called into dispute in recent years by J.S.A. Elisonas and J.P. Lamers in their translation of The Chronicle of Oda Nobunaga by Ota Gyuichi. In Lamers' Japonius he says that "whether or not Nobunaga actually operated with three rotating ranks cannot be determined on the basis of reliable evidence."[234] They claim that the version of events describing volley fire was written several years after the battle, and an earlier account says to the contrary that guns were fired en masse.[235] However both Korean and Chinese sources note that Japanese gunners were making use of volley fire during the Japanese invasions of Korea from 1592–98.[236]

European gunners might have implemented the volley fire to some extent since at least 1579 when the Englishman Thomas Digges suggested that musketeers should, "after the old Romane manner make three or four several fronts, with convenient spaces for the first to retire and unite himselfe with the second, and both these if occasion so require, with the third; the shot [musketeers] having their convenient lanes continually during the fight to discharge their peces."[237] The Spanish too displayed some awareness of the volley technique and described it in a military manual dating to 1586: "Start with three files of five soldiers each, separated one from the other by fifteen paces, and they should comport themselves not with fury but with calm skillfulness [con reposo diestramente] such that when the first file has finished shooting they make space for the next (which is coming up to shoot) without turning face, countermarching [contrapassando] to the left but showing the enemy only the side of their bodies, which is the narrowest of the body, and [taking their place at the rear] about one to three steps behind, with five or six pellets in their mouths, and two lighted matchlock fuses … and they load [their pieces] promptly … and return to shoot when it's their turn again."[238] There is also some slight evidence that a form of volley fire might have been employed by Prospero Colonna's arquebusiers as early as the Battle of Bicocca (1522).[239] However this has generally been panned by historians as both an over interpretation as well as mis-citation of a passage by Charles Oman suggesting that the Spanish arquebusiers kneeled to reload, when in fact Oman never made such a claim.[240]

Regardless, it is clear that the concept of volley fire had existed in Europe for quite some time during the 16th century, but it was in the Netherlands during the 1590s that the musketry volley really took off. The key to this development was William Louis, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg who in 1594 described the technique in a letter to his cousin:

I have discovered … a method of getting the musketeers and soldiers armed with arquebuses not only to keep firing very well but to do it effectively in battle order … in the following manner: as soon as the first rank has fired together, then by the drill [they have learned] they will march to the back. The second rank, either marching forward or standing still, [will next] fire together [and] then march to the back. After that, the third and following ranks will do the same. Thus before the last ranks have fired, the first will have reloaded.[241]

— Letter from Louis to Maurice

For many Europeans this new way of conducting warfare seemed ridiculous, so that in the beginning they were openly mocked. But the Dutch army continued to drill the volley under both Louis and his cousin Maurice, Prince of Orange, so that it became second nature. One Dutch historian recounts the exercises in which regiments marched "man by man bringing the rearmost to the front and the frontmost to the rear.… The beginnings were very difficult, and many people felt, because it was all so unusual, that it was odd and ridiculous [lacherlich]. They were mocked by the enemy, but with time the great advantages of the practices became clear … and eventually they were copied by other nations."[242] Soon the reorganized Dutch army displayed the virtues of the countermarch volley and the practice spread across Europe. An important component to the successful deployment of volley fire was the drill, which according to Geoffrey Parker, "only two civilisation have invented drill for their infantry: China and Europe. Moreover, both of them did so twice: in the fifth century BC in North China and in Greece, and again in the late sixteenth century. Exponents of the second phase— Qi Jiguang in Imperial China and Maurice of Nassau in the Dutch Republic—explicitly sought to revive classical precedents, and in the West, marching in step and standing on parade became a permanent part of military life."[243] Drill was difficult and the manner in which the volley fire should be executed had not been perfected in Louis' time. It is clear from Holland's historical sources that it took many trials and experiments for the process to be refined.[237]

Indeed the musketry volley drills seemed so unorthodox to some that in some parts of the world there was a push back against the incorporation of muskets. According to Qi Jiguang, this was because:

The musket was originally considered a powerful weapon, and in attacking the enemy is one that has been much relied upon. But how is it that so many officers and soldiers don't think it can be relied upon heavily? The answer lies in the fact that in drills and on the battlefield, when all the men fire at once, the smoke and fire settle over the field like miasmal clouds, and not a single eye can see, and not a singe hand can signal. Not all [soldiers] hold their guns level, or they don't hold them to the side of their cheek, or they don't use the sights, or they let their hands droop and support it to hold it up, and one hand holds the gun and one hand uses the fuse to touch off the fire, thus failing to use the matchlock grip— what of them? It's just a case of being out of practice and uncourageous, hurrying but not being able to take out the fire fuse and place it in the matchlock grip, trying for speed and convenience. In this way, there is absolutely no way to be accurate, and so how could one value muskets? Especially given that the name of the weapon is "bird-gun," which comes from the way that it can hit a flying bird, hitting accurately many times. But in this way, fighting forth, the power doesn't go the way one intends, and one doesn't know which way it goes— so how can one hit the enemy, to say nothing of being able to hit a bird?[244]

— Ji xiao xin shu

In Korea the Joseon dynasty underwent a devastating war with newly unified Japan that lasted from 1592 to 1598. The shock of this encounter spurred the court to undergo a process of military strengthening. One of the core elements of military strengthening was to adopt the musket. According to reformers, "In recent times in China they did not have muskets; they first learned about them from the Wokou pirates in Zhejiang Province. Qi Jiguang trained troops in their use for several years until they [muskets] became one of the skills of the Chinese, who subsequently used them to defeat the Japanese."[245] By 1607 Korean musketeers had been trained in the fashion which Qi Jiguang prescribed, and a drill manual had been produced based on the Chinese leader's Ji xiao xin shu. Of the volley fire, the manual says that "every musketeer squad should either divide into two musketeers per layer or one and deliver fire in five volleys or in ten."[245] Another Korean manual produced in 1649 describes a similar process: "When the enemy approaches to within a hundred paces, a signal gun is fired and a conch is blown, at which the soldiers stand. Then a gong is sounded, the conch stops blowing, and the heavenly swan [a double-reed horn] is sounded, at which the musketeers fire in concert, either all at once or in five volleys (齊放一次盡擧或分五擧)."[245] This training method proved to be quite formidable in the 1619 Battle of Sarhu when 10,000 Korean musketeers managed to kill many Manchus before before their allies surrendered. While Korea went on to lose both wars against the Manchu invasions of 1627 and 1636, their musketeers were well respected by Manchu leaders. It was the first Qing emperor Hong Taiji who wrote: "The Koreans are incapable on horseback but do not transgress the principles of the military arts. They excel at infantry fighting, especially in musketeer tactics."[246]

An illustration by Byam Shaw from the book The Adventures of Akbar by Flora Annie Steel. It depicts artillerymen.

The Gunpowder Empires generally refer to the Islamic Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires.[247] The phrase was first coined by Marshall Hodgson in the title of Book 5 ("The Second Flowering: The Empires of Gunpowder Times") of his highly influential three-volume work, The Venture of Islam (1974).[248] Hogdson applied the term "gunpowder empire" to three Islamic political entities he identified as separate from the unstable, geographically limited confederations of Turkic clans that prevailed in post-Mongol times. He called them "military patronage states of the Later Middle Period," which possessed three defining characteristics: first, a legitimization of independent dynastic law; second, the conception of the whole state as a single military force; third, the attempt to explain all economic and high cultural resources as appanages of the chief military families.[249] Connecting these empires were their traditions which grew "out of Mongol notions of greatness," but "[s]uch notions could fully mature and create stable bureaucratic empires only after gunpowder weapons and their specialized technology attained a primary place in military life."[250]

William H. McNeill further expanded on the concept of gunpowder empires by arguing that such states "were able to monopolize the new artillery, central authorities were able to unite larger territories into new, or newly consolidated, empires." [251] In the McNeill political framework, gunpowder empires were notable for their monopolization of firearms, whereas although Europe pioneered the development of the new artillery in the fifteenth century, no state monopolized it. Gun-casting know-how had been concentrated in the Low Countries near the mouths of the Scheldt and Rhine rivers, which France and the Habsburgs divided up in territory among themselves, resulting in an arms standoff.[252] By contrast, such monopolies allowed states to create militarized empires in the Near East, Russia and India, and "in a considerably modified fashion" in China and Japan.[253]

In 2011 Douglas E. Streusand criticized the Hodgson-McNeill Gunpowder-Empire hypothesis, calling it into disfavor as a neither "adequate [n]or accurate" explanation, although the term remains in use.[254] The main problem with the Hodgson-McNeill theory is that the acquisition of firearms does not seem to have preceded the initial acquisition of territory constituting the imperial critical mass of any of the three early modern Islamic empires, except in the case of the Mughals. Moreover, it seems that the commitment to military autocratic rule pre-dated the acquisition of gunpowder weapons in all three cases. Reasons other than (or in addition to) military technology have been offered for the nearly simultaneous rise of three centralized military empires in contiguous areas dominated by decentralized Turkic tribes. One explanation, called "Confessionalization" by historians of fifteenth century Europe, invokes examination of how the relation of church and state "mediated through confessional statements and church ordinances" lead to the origins of absolutist polities. Douglas Streusand uses the Safavids as an example: The Safavids from the beginning imposed a new religious identity on their general population; they did not seek to develop a national or linguistic identity, but their policy had that effect.[255] Nor does it seem to be the case that the acquisition of gunpowder weapons and their integration into the military was influenced by considerations of whichever variety of Islam the particular empire promoted.[256] Whether or not gunpowder was inherently linked to the existence of any of these three empires, it cannot be questioned that each of the three acquired artillery and firearms early in their history and made such weapons an integral part of their military tactics.

In India, guns made of bronze were recovered from Calicut (1504) and Diu (1533).[257] By the 17th century, Indians were manufacturing a diverse variety of firearms; large guns in particular, became visible in Tanjore, Dacca, Bijapur and Murshidabad.[258]Gujarāt supplied Europe saltpeter for use in gunpowder warfare during the 17th century.[259]Bengal and Mālwa participated in saltpeter production.[259] The Dutch, French, Portuguese, and English used Chāpra as a center of saltpeter refining.[260]

Hyder Ali, prince of Mysore, developed war bombs with an important change: the use of metal pipes to contain the combustion powder. Although the hammered soft iron he used was crude, the bursting strength of the container of black powder was much higher than the earlier paper construction. Thus a greater internal pressure was possible, with a resultant greater thrust of the propulsive jet. The rocket body was lashed with leather thongs to a long bamboo stick. Range was perhaps up to three-quarters of a mile (more than a kilometer). Although individually these rockets were not accurate, dispersion error became less important when large numbers were fired rapidly in mass attacks. They were particularly effective against cavalry and were hurled into the air, after lighting, or skimmed along the hard dry ground. Hyder Ali's son, Tippu Sultan, continued to develop and expand the use of rocket weapons, reportedly increasing the number of rocket troops from 1,200 to a corps of 5,000. In battles at Seringapatam in 1792 and 1799 these rockets were used with considerable effect against the British.

The news of the successful use of rockets spread through Europe. In England Sir William Congreve began to experiment privately. First, he experimented with a number of black-powder formulas and set down standard specifications of composition. He also standardized construction details and used improved production techniques. Also, his designs made it possible to choose either an explosive (ball charge) or incendiary warhead.

The Indian war rockets were formidable weapons before such rockets were used in Europe. They had bam-boo rods, a rocket-body lashed to the rod, and iron points. They were directed at the target and fired by lighting the fuse, but the trajectory was rather erratic. The use of mines and counter-mines with explosive charges of gunpowder is mentioned for the times of Akbar and Jahāngir.

Advances in metallurgy led to portable weapons and the development of hand-held firearms such as muskets. Cannon technology in Europe gradually outpaced that of China and these technological improvements were then transferred back to China through Jesuitmissionaries who were put in charge of cannon manufacture by the late Ming and early Qing emperors.

Different shapes of corned gunpowder, each with its own function

Shot and gunpowder for military purposes were made by skilled military tradesmen, who were later called firemakers, who were also required to make fireworks for celebrations of victory or peace. During the Renaissance two European schools of pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in Italy and the other at Nürnberg, Germany. The Italian school of pyrotechnics emphasized elaborate fireworks, the German school stressed scientific advancement. Both schools added significantly to the further development of pyrotechnics and, by the mid-17th century, fireworks were used for entertainment on an unprecedented scale in Europe—being popular even at resorts and public gardens.[263] At the same time some military men were disguising gray in their beards by dusting them with gunpowder, the antiquary John Aubrey noted in his memoranda.[264]

Until the invention of gunpowder, large rocks could only be broken up by hard labor or by heating with large fires followed by rapid quenching. Black powder was used in civil engineering and mining as early as the 15th century.[265] The earliest surviving record for the use of gunpowder in mines comes from Hungary in 1627.[265] It was introduced to Britain in 1638 by German miners, after which records are numerous.[266] Until the invention of the safety fuse by William Bickford in 1831, the practice was extremely dangerous.[267][268] Another reason for danger were the dense fumes given off and the risk of igniting flammable gas when used in coal mines.

The first time gunpowder was used on a large scale in civil engineering was in the construction of the Canal du Midi in Southern France.[268] It was completed in 1681 and linked the Mediterranean sea with the Atlantic with 240 km of canal and 100 locks. Another noteworthy consumer of black powder was the Erie canal in New York, which was 585 km long and took eight years to complete, starting in 1817.[268]

Black powder was also extensively used in railway construction. At first railways followed the contours of the land, or crossed low ground by means of bridges and viaducts, but later railways made extensive use of cuttings and tunnels. One 2400-ft stretch of the 5.4 mi Box Tunnel on the Great Western Railway line between London and Bristol consumed a ton of gunpowder per week for over two years.[268] The 12.9 km long Mont Cenis Tunnel was completed in 13 years starting in 1857 but, even with black powder, progress was only 25 cm a day until the invention of pneumatic drills sped up the work.

Gunpowder as a gun propellant suffered from several weaknesses inherent to its composition. It was subject to passivation by moisture and was awkward to load and ignite in a weapon. Sulfur oxides and moisture produced corrosion on metal gun components and the smoke gave away the position of the shooter. The development of cartridges and explosive primers were a major improvement in the use of gunpowders in the field.

From the earliest period, gunpowder has been composed of a nitrate salt, sulfur, and carbonaceous matter. The Nitrate component is the Oxidizing agent, Sulfur is a low melting Reducing agent and serves to aid in the transfer of heat through the gunpowder mass, and Carbon is a reducing component producing hot, high pressure gas. The utility of gunpowder lies in its ability to accelerate a projectile by the explosive expansion of gas. The development of new explosive materials in the 19th century naturally led to improvements in the rate and magnitude of pressure rise as well as new means for ignition of the charge.

Nitroester[269] compositions nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin were developed by Henri Braconnot in 1832 and Ascanio Sobrero in 1846, respectively. The development of smokeless powder stemmed from efforts by numerous workers to produce an improved gun propellant providing better resistance to moisture, greater muzzle velocity, and generally greater reliability. By the end of the 19th century, nitroester compositions Poudre B, Ballistite, and Cordite were the major smokeless propellants. Significantly, many nitroesters were capable of detonation without confinement. The classic gunpowder composition was only capable of Deflagration in the open.

The process of aromatic nitration to afford picric acid from the trinitration of phenol was performed in the early 19th century, though it is possible that Johann Rudolf Glauber may have reported it much earlier. Nitroesters would find use in gun propellant formulation. Nitroaromatics like picric acid eventually found use in explosive cannon shells owing to their ability to withstand the severe shock of firing.

During the American Revolutionary War, a number of caves were mined for saltpeter to make gunpowder when supplies from Europe were embargoed. Abigail Adams, reputedly also made gunpowder at her family farm in Massachusetts.[270]

During the American Civil War, British India was the main source for saltpeter for the manufacture of gunpowder for the Union armies. This supply was threatened by the British government during the Trent Affair, when Union naval forces stopped a British ship, the RMS Trent, and removed two Confederate diplomats. The British government responded in part by halting all exports of saltpeter to the United States, threatening their gunpowder manufacturing resources. Shortly thereafter, the situation was resolved and the Confederate diplomats were released.[272]

The Union Navy blockaded the southern Confederate States, which reduced the amount of gunpowder that could be imported from overseas. The Confederate Nitre and Mining Bureau was formed to produce gunpowder for the army and the navy from domestic resources. Nitre[273] is the English spelling of "Niter". While carbon and sulfur were readily available throughout the south, potassium nitrate was often produced from the Calcium nitrate found in cave dirt, tobacco barn floors and barn stalls other places. A number of caves were mined, and the men and boys who worked in the caves were called "peter monkey", somewhat in imitation of the naval term "powder monkey" that was used for the boys who brought up charges of gunpowder on gunboats.[274]

^天佑初，王茂章征安仁义于润州，洎城陷，中十余创，以功迁左先锋都尉。从攻豫章，（郑）璠以所部发机「飞火」，烧龙沙门，率壮士突火先登入城，焦灼被体，以功授检校司徒。(Rough Translation: During the beginning of Tianyou Era (904-907), Zheng Fan followed Wang Maozhang under a campaign of Runzhou, which was guarded by rebel An Renyi, he was severely injured by the time it was captured, as the result he was promoted as the Junior General of Left Vanguard. At the campaign of Yuchang, he ordered his troops to propel the "flying fire" on the besieged city, after the city-gate of Longsha was burnt, he led his troops dashed over the fire and entered the city, his body was scorched, as the result he was promoted as the Prime Minister of Inspectorate.) Records of Nine Kingdoms ch. 2

^Mende, Tibor (1944). Hungary. Macdonald & Co. Ltd. p. 34. Retrieved 28 November 2011. Jengis Khan's successor, Ogdai Khan, continued his dazzling conquests. The Mongols brought with them a Chinese invention, gunpowder, at that time totally unknown to Europe. After the destruction of Kiev (1240) Poland and Silesia shared its fate, and in 1241 they crossed the Carpathians

^(the University of Michigan)Patrick, John Merton (1961). Artillery and warfare during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Volume 8, Issue 3 of Monograph series. Utah State University Press. p. 13. Retrieved 28 November 2011. 33 D'Ohsson's European account of these events credits the Mongols with using catapults and ballistae only in the battle of Mohi, but several Chinese sources speak of p'ao and "fire-catapults" as present. The Meng Wu Er Shih Chi states, for instance, that the Mongols attacked with the p'ao for five days before taking the city of Strigonie to which many Hungarians had fled: "On the sixth day the city was taken. The powerful soldiers threw the Huo Kuan Vets (fire-pot) and rushed into the city, crying and shouting.34 Whether or not Batu actually used explosive powder on the Sayo, only twelve years later Mangu was requesting "naphtha-shooters" in large numbers for his invasion of Persia, according to Yule

^(the University of Michigan)Patrick, John Merton (1961). Artillery and warfare during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Volume 8, Issue 3 of Monograph series. Utah State University Press. p. 13. Retrieved 28 November 2011. (along, it seems, with explosive charges of gunpowder) on the massed Hungarians trapped within their defensive ring of wagons. King Bela escaped, though 70,000 Hungarians died in the massacre that resulted – a slaughter that extended over several days of the retreat from Mohi.

^(the University of Michigan)Patrick, John Merton (1961). Artillery and warfare during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Volume 8, Issue 3 of Monograph series. Utah State University Press. p. 13. Retrieved 28 November 2011. superior mobility and combination of shock and missile tactics again won the day. As the battle developed, the Mongols broke up western cavalry charges, and placed a heavy fire of flaming arrows and naphtha fire-bombs

^(the University of Michigan)Patrick, John Merton (1961). Artillery and warfare during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Volume 8, Issue 3 of Monograph series. Utah State University Press. p. 6. Retrieved 28 November 2011. Despite the conclusions drawn to the contrary by some 19th century historians, there now appears to be valid evidence for the development in the 13th century of real firearms in China where gunpowder may have been known as early as the

^Turnbull, Stephen; McBride, Angus (1980). Angus McBride, ed. The Mongols (illustrated, reprint ed.). Osprey Publishing. p. 31. ISBN0-85045-372-0. Retrieved 28 November 2011. In 1259 Chinese technicians produced a 'fire-lance' (huo ch' iang): gunpowder was exploded in a bamboo tube to discharge a cluster of pellets at a distance of 250 yards. It is also interesting to note the Mongol use of suffocating fumes produced by burning reeds at the battle of Liegnitz in 1241.

^Saunders, John Joseph (2001). e The history of the Mongol conquestsCheck |url= value (help) (illustrated, reprint ed.). University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 198. ISBN0-8122-1766-7. Retrieved 28 November 2011. In 1259 Chinese technicians produced a 'fire-lance' (huo ch'iang): gunpowder was exploded in a bamboo tube to discharge a cluster of pellets at a distance of 250 yards. We are getting close to a barrel-gun.

^(the University of Michigan)Hayton, (Frère); Burger, Glenn (1988). Glenn Burger, Richard Pynson, ed. A lytell cronycle: Richard Pynson's translation (c 1520) of La fleur des histoires de la terre d'Orient. Volume 6 of Toronto medieval texts and translations (illustrated ed.). University of Toronto Press. p. 8. ISBN0-8020-2626-5. Retrieved 28 November 2011. other people of grosse wyt and vnderstandynge and themselfe onely ingenyous. And for very treuth, out of this realm of Cathay are brought many strange and meruelous thynges of subtyll labour and art ingenyous, wherby this peple well seme to be the moste subtell and inuentife of the world in arte and laboure of handes. ...The men of this countrey ar no stronge warryours nor valyant in armes, but they be moche subtyll and ingenyous; by mean wherof, often tymes they haue disconfyted and ouercome their ennymes by their engyns, and they haue dyuers sortes and manners of armours and engyns of warre whiche other nacions haue not.

^David Nicolle, Richard Hook (1998). The Mongol Warlords: Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, Hulegu, Tamerlane (illustrated ed.). Brockhampton Press. p. 86. ISBN1-86019-407-9. Retrieved 28 November 2011. Though he was himself a Chinese, he learned his trade from his father, who had accompanied Genghis Khan on his invasion of Muslim Transoxania and Iran. Perhaps the use of gunpowder as a propellant, in other words the invention of true guns, appeared first in the Muslim Middle East, whereas the invention of gunpowder itself was a Chinese achievementCS1 maint: Uses authors parameter (link)

^Peter Watson (2006). Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud. HarperCollins. p. 304. ISBN978-0-06-093564-1. The first use of a metal tube in this context was made around 1280 in the wars between the Song and the Mongols, where a new term, chong, was invented to describe the new horror...Like paper, it reached the West via the Muslims, in this case the writings of the Andalusian botanist Ibn al-Baytar, who died in Damascus in 1248. The Arabic term for saltpetre is 'Chinese snow' while the Persian usage is 'Chinese salt'.28

^Oliver Frederick Gillilan Hogg (1970). Artillery: its origin, heyday, and decline. Archon Books. p. 123. The Chinese were certainly acquainted with saltpetre, the essential ingredient of gunpowder. They called it Chinese Snow and employed it early in the Christian era in the manufacture of fireworks and rockets.

^Seoul National University-College of Humanities-Department of History (2005-04-30). "History of Science in Korea". Vestige of Scientific work in Korea. Seoul National University. Retrieved 2006-07-27.

^"Dr. John Owen, the deane of Christ Church, when Vice-Chancellor, had as much powder in his hair that would discharg eight cannons," as well as other fashionable attire that gave the lie to his Puritan "prelaticall cutt." Oliver Lawson Dick, ed. Aubrey's Brief Lives. Edited from the Original Manuscripts, 1949, p. xxxvii.

^The term nitroester is meant to delineate one of several possible organo-nitro functional groups. A nitroester is the result of the nitrification of an alcohol group, C-O-H, by Nitronium ion, O=N=O+, resulting in an unstable C-O-N(O)-O linkage. The other relevant "nitro" composition developed in the 19th century was the nitroaromatic functionality with its Ar-N(O)-O linkage, where Ar stands for a Benzene ring. Trinitrotoluene and picric acid are examples of nitroaromatics.

^New York (State). Committee of Safety, 1775-1776. Essays upon the making of salt-petre and gunpowder. New York: Printed by Samuel London, 1776. 39 pages. Published by order of the Committee of Safety of the Colony of New York.